The Ritual Movie was Better than the Book

The Ritual was one of the most unique horror gems that was released back in 2017. This movie went viral online, and I had no idea why, until I watched the film for the first time. The movie features one of the best monster designs in horror history, and the buildup to this creature was executed so well!

We follow the story of four friends who go hiking in the woods, only to end up targeted by a cult that worships a God. Perhaps they were meant to run into this monster, because of the horrific trauma the group had experienced before this trip. The group had lost a friend to a robbery, and the main character had failed to save him. 

The creature and the cult hunt down each of the friends, leaving only the main character as the final survivor. He is able to escape from the cult, and he is also able to defeat the creature, proving to himself that he is strong, and he can finally move forward from everything he had lost. 

Compared to the book however, it's a completely different vibe. 

I did enjoy the book, but I got so annoyed with second half. 

While the film gave us an exciting second half, the book did the complete opposite.

The book mostly focused on the cult, that consisted of a small group of people that tortured the main character for a long time. This segment got so annoying very quickly, because the cult came off almost cartoonish. This part of the novel felt like a very different story compared to the first half. The first segment of the book feels like you're watching the movie, and it works. But the second half felt so cringey and cliche when it came to the cult. 

And I wasn't the only one who felt this way.

After finishing the novel, I decided to do some research, and fans also felt the same way with the second half of the novel. We readers got annoyed with the cult members, they just didn't feel real like the ones from the film.

I felt the author lingered on these silly cult characters for way too long, and so many scenes could have been shortened, and we could have gotten more of a focus on the monster, like the film was going for.

The movie gave enough screen time to the cult, and the lack of emotion on their faces as they wandered their homes like mindless zombies was enough for me as a viewer to know that these people were too far gone. They now belong to the God they worship, and the screentime we got with the cult during this sequence was a good limit. 

The main focus of The Ritual is the monster itself, and the movie understood that.

I felt that the monster was barely shown in the book, and I'd rather had more of the creature than the cult. The monster was also revealed to be a giant goat creature, and I have to say that the monster design in the film was ten times better than the monster in the novel. The creature in the film was a combination of several animals, creating a total nightmare.

The movie also hints at a bigger backstory to the monster, meaning that it could be the son of a God named Loki, a trickster God, and this reveal perfectly explains why this monster looks absolutely horrific.

So yeah, I think the movie did a far better job than the novel. These writers most likely read the novel, and decided to throw in their own ideas, to give horror fans a horror gem that 100% deserves its cult following. 

I don't really agree with the logic of the book or movie being better than the other, but in this case, The Ritual film adaptation was a masterpiece compared to the book. 

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn