The Ritual was made into a really freakin' good movie. There were vast differences between it and the book, but the core premise stood strong. Many of the changes made sense thematically, and were sensible. Adaptations don't always veer in this direction from their source material, I've noticed. This being said, I thought that everything that worked about the book was done really well in the movie.
The monster, for instance. The truly scary thing about it was that it went unseen for most of the piece. This was well done, and I found myself to be impressed by its unveiling. I had an image in my mind that did not match the cinematic creature, but I decided that I liked the one from the movie.
I also found that the movie helped garner sympathy for the protagonist AND his friends. In the book, we were more attached to Luke's point of view, and it became hard to care about Phil and Dom. The movie did an excellent job of keeping us attached to Luke and showing the effect of the plight from each angle.
There was a hard left turn in the middle of the book that was avoided here without dropping any plot points. I don't know how I feel about it. Like previously stated, I almost set the book down after that occurrence… But then I found that once I had accepted it that I kind of wanted to see it onscreen.
I would call the cinematic version of The Ritual a worthwhile experience. However, I would recommend the book a thousand times over. The movie captured the untamed beauty of Northern Sweden, but the pulse-driving suspense of the prose was hard to beat. You can check out my review of the book here.
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