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Rituals (1977)

Dir: Peter Carter.

Five doctors, Harry (Hal Holbrook), Mitzi (Lawrence Dane), Abel (Ken James), Martin (Robin Gammell) and his brother DJ (Gary Reineke) are flown deep into the Canadian wilderness for their annual hike/camping break.
Simmering internal tensions, differing outlooks on their careers and morality over medical issues come to the fore in the enforced closeness and solitude and things get worse when all their boots, aside from DJ's, go missing, forcing them to cancel the hike.
DJ offers to walkout the woods to get help, but soon the remaining men come to the terrifying conclusion that someone, in the wild woods, wants them dead....

Ignored, when not being maligned, upon it's belated cinema release (nearly 2 years after filming) "Rituals" has since become something of a (non-Cronenberg) gem in the crown of Canadian genre cinema.
But stuck with dark and dull VHS/grey market DVD transfers (for an already dark film in many places) "Rituals" has never really been given the chance for a proper 2nd lease of life.
The long awaited release on legit DVD then (from Code Red, although a German DVD - with forced subs - is also out) is something to be celebrated as, although the transfer still has lighting problems, modern audiences can finally see the movie as intended.

Starting off with a wonderfully comedic plane flight and a slightly mad pilot, who drops the controls mid flight to show the Doctor's his scars, "Rituals" makes itself very welcome.
And the fact we have grown men not teens as the would-be victims (something that was the norm in the 70's) is also a welcome change from your normal, later, Slasher set-up.
In fact you can put this down (despite it's obvious "Deliverance" aspects) with "Silent Night, Bloody Night" and "Black Sunday" as one of the pre-"Halloween" films that has many Slasher tropes too many people say "Halloween" gave us.
We also have some nicely guerrilla style filming of the impressive scenery and lots of atmosphere.

But then things start to go dip and even Hal Holbrook in his y-fronts can't deliver much excitement in this portion of the movie.
A slow burn is one thing but this, even in the middle of action scenes, is just 40 solid minutes of the same medical arguments and back and forth shouting (how are any of these guys friends?!) that really tests the patience.
The in-fighting becomes so OTT it tends to verge on the unintentionally funny as well, especially when one fight breaks out in the middle of a torrential river and they fail to notice one of their injured party floating away!
An effective lead-up to this moment (involving nasty mantraps) is let down by such tension destroying antics.
Worse the same antics we've spent the last half hour watching any way.

Lack of gore is okay too, but so much happens off camera or confusingly staged on camera during the first half of "Rituals" that most of the danger seems like self inflicted/unexplained accidents instead of the work of a psycho killer who, an hour in. we've seen kill absolutely no one.
Perhaps this is the point of the film, that the killer is a launch pad to the self inflicted wounds and calamity that befall the men as they verbally tear each other apart as they try to escape him, but that's hardly the stuff of entertaining genre cinema.

Full marks to the actors for going through some major physical hardships though, parts of this are a real war of attrition as far as physical obstacles go.
For example there’s a brilliantly done (for real) bee attack that leads to a genuinely bruising escape down a rocky hill into a river,
It's certainly enjoyable seeing Hal Holbrook ("The Fog") do a Burt Reynolds (with more angst and shouting though) after seeing him in so many old guy, sedate roles.
Thankfully the excellent acting and grim, bleak, cinematography carry the film over these many pitfalls and the film does manage to keep boredom (if not annoyance) at bay, but the conclusion is the same...far too much shouting.
Even more frustrating is that some very interesting things happen near the end as discoveries are made by Holbrook, but so much time was initially spent arguing and walking that there's sadly not enough time left to really cover this far more interesting turn of events.

But after all that negativity lets get to mentioning the great parts of this film. They come late in the review because they come late in the movie.
The motivation/how that motivation is revealed aspect of the killer is pretty unique and intriguing (even if we have to assume a lot, like he must have been listening to the men talking for a long time) and in the last 3rd some suitably grim sights finally make a welcome appearance.
One such sequence in particular, involving a mutilated body stuck in a chair, is excellent as both a horror and a dramatic moment as Holbrook crosses into the darkness he feels he can't morally avoid any more.
In fact, although all are good and joint main actor/Producer Lawrence Dane ("Scanners") is very strong, this is Holbrook’s' film all the way. His raging, despairing, driven, sweaty, physically wrecked, filth caked, performance is utterly breathtaking at times.
Holbrook has got rather stuffy as the years have gone one though and has supposedly turned his back on the film due to the violence, which is a huge mistake as this is a genuine tour-de-force performance.

Talking about tour-de-force moments, the final few minutes of "Rituals" deliver some truly outstanding, screaming, in-your-face moments of horror and violence.
It's searing backwoods horror at its finest and is genuinely disturbing in it's extremity and bludgeoning insanity.
It's so intense and just plain horrific you wonder if the same guy who filmed 45 minutes of campfire and river medical talk/arguments directed this portion of the film.
There’s a great looking killer too (real joy from backwoods cinematic nutter fans) a smattering of gore.

Sadly, even the much better than anything before (although the trailer is a lot brighter), the 'Code Red' DVD transfer cant overcome some the overly dark scenes during this finale though. But its a small problem and the final 20 minutes or so are some of the best, most brutal, atmospheric horror filmmaking you will ever see. Its that good.
Perhaps in fact it comes off this intense because of the very sedate/horror-lite build up.
So stick with it. Know that the 7th medical morality argument of the day (to be fair medical ethics does play a key part in the film) and badly timed in-fighting will indeed lead to a truly stunning final 3rd and a truly amazing finale.