Directed by:
Peter CarterScreenplay:
Ian SutherlandCinematography:
René VerzierComposer:
Hagood HardyCast:
Hal Holbrook, Lawrence Dane, Robin Gammell, Gary Reineke, Ken James, Murray Westgate, Jack CreleyPlots(1)
Adventure-seeker Mitzi (Lawrence Dane) invites fellow doctor (Hal Holbrook) and three other physician friends to go on their annual camping trip in the middle of the unexplored Canadian mountains. The five of them thought that they were alone in the middle of nowhere on their ritual camping trip, but this time someone was watching them. A crazed psychopath wants to play a psychological game of survival with the five campers and it soon becomes a horrifying game of kill or be killed. (Code Red)
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Reviews (3)
Respectfully weak for Boorman standards. It doesn't have the right kind of kick to it like Deliverance, nor does it have the unique sound that you can tell your mates about over a beer. But not to be pejorative, the actors are great, they really had to suffer during the shooting, and it's a fine survival drama for most of the runtime. Unfortunately at the very end it turns into an trite horror movie with ridiculous make-up effects, not to mention the twist, which not even a collage of X-ray image can save.
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Rituals is very decent 1970s testosterone-fuelled survival-movie about a group of doctors whose fishing trip in the wilderness descends into bickering with one another and then they realize there’s an unwelcome saboteur around. A comparison with the more well-known Deliverance is not entirely groundless, Rituals is, however, more in the vein of a horror movie. The wilderness far from civilization provides the movie with a very credible atmosphere of total seclusion and the growing despair and exhaustion of the characters as every minute goes by is utterly believable (and draws you in). Although it is a bit clichéd for its genre, it is still a very respectable movie, which with its mood and suspense resonated with me.
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Once again, I allowed myself to get very excited only to cry over the results. It’s true that Rituals has a lot in common with Deliverance, it’s also true that the atmosphere is reminiscent of other forest horror pieces like The Blair Witch Project, and the remarks about its very slow pace are also accurate. But it didn’t shock or affect me in any way, quite the opposite, in fact, the film left me feeling perfectly cool. The only emotion it aroused was disenchantment at the boring and amateur looking stuff I was watching. In short: a rightfully forgotten “gem”… :-(
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Photo © Astral Films
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