Movie · 2025 · Horror, Drama, Thriller · 1h 38m · NR · English
Curator score: 0.2/10 (28.7K ratings)
You must have faith.
Overview
Two priests, one in crisis with his faith and the other confronting a turbulent past, must overcome their differences to perform a risky exorcism.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.2/10
IMDb: 4.5/10
Letterboxd: 1.92/5
Metacritic: 33
TMDB: 5.8/10
Director
David Midell
Production
Cinemachineshop, Redbird Entertainment, Andrew Stevens Entertainment, MetaFilms, Baweja Studios, BondIt Media Capital
Cast
Dan Stevens, Abigail Cowen, Al Pacino, Patricia Heaton, Ashley Greene, Patrick Fabian, María Camila Giraldo, Meadow Williams, Enrico Natale, Ritchie Montgomery, Liann Pattison, Courtney Rae Allen, Emily Brinks
Curator Review
Verdict
A familiar exorcism setup with little sense of freshness, style, or tension, and the consensus points to clumsy direction and thin characterization. The priest-versus-priest dynamic and a few committed performances are not enough to overcome the generic scares and uneven tone.
Best for
Viewers who enjoy routine possession movies and don’t mind a formulaic structure
Fans of Dan Stevens or Al Pacino looking for a curiosity watch
People in the mood for a campy, unintentionally funny horror-drama
Skip if
You want a genuinely scary or inventive exorcism film
You’re tired of possession-movie clichés and predictable beats
You prefer polished horror with strong atmosphere and visual control
Overview
The Ritual arrives with a built-in hook: two priests, one losing his faith and the other haunted by his past, forced into a dangerous exorcism. In practice, it plays like a very familiar possession movie that leans on stock imagery, strained scares, and a tone that never quite settles into either serious dread or effective pulp.
Worth noting
The strongest reactions seem to come from the cast rather than the filmmaking. Dan Stevens gets the most goodwill, and Al Pacino’s presence adds a strange, watchable energy, but the material around them is thin. The film’s visual style and pacing have been widely criticized as flat, which is a major problem for a genre that lives or dies on atmosphere.
Bottom line
If you’re deeply committed to exorcism horror, there’s enough here to recognize the template, but not enough to justify a strong recommendation. It’s the kind of movie that reminds you how hard it is to make this subgenre feel new, and how quickly it collapses when the direction doesn’t have a clear point of view.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Danny (1★) · 1118 likes
Exorcist films are a lot like Shark films. There’s only one good one and it was in the 70’s.
cob (1★) · 907 likes
the exorcist meets the office
GeminiMarie (2★) · 576 likes
Where did they find so many baddie nuns
♠️☆ liv ☆♠️ (0.5★) · 374 likes
why was this directed like a sitcom????
this was every possession film ever