The Ritual
The Ritual is a Netflix horror film set in the wilderness of Sweden, based upon the novel of the same name by Adam Nevill. In both book and movie versions, the story follows four old friends hiking out in the middle of nowhere in Sweden, with tension gradually mounting between them and disturbing things start to pop up with greater frequency. However, the movie version does make some pretty substantial changes from the novel.
First off, the movie opens with the four friends plus an additional friend all gathered at a pub, discussing what they should do on their next holiday. One of them, Rob, suggests hiking in Sweden. After they leave, another of the group, Luke, wants to stop off and get some booze and Rob goes with him. As it turns out, a couple of thugs are robbing the store at that time. Luke manages to hide before the robbers see him, but Rob is caught right in the aisle and is confronted by the thieves, who end up killing him. Fast forward 6 months and the remaining four friends are in Sweden, hiking the same trails that Rob had suggesting.
None of that is from the book. The book actually starts once they are already hiking in Sweden. The character of Rob was invented for the movie. The death of Rob ends up serving as a way to drive a wedge between Luke and one or two of the other characters, primarily Dom, for a perceived bit of cowardice on Luke's part for not having saved Rob. In the novel, this tension between the same characters is all due to Luke still being a single man who goes out drinking, working shitty dead-end jobs, and having no real serious relationships, while the other three are all married and at least two of them have children. This leaves them feeling like Luke has not grown up, while they have. This develops of the course of the novel, with more details surfacing.
That fairly sizeable change early aside, much of the movie follows the novels quite well. The other major change is the last part of the movie. I won't get into much detail here, just to avoid giving away too much of the story, but the novel and movie go down different pathways, but they aren't completely unrelated. Some elements are present in both versions, but the novel incorporates black metal into this section of the story (the novel is actually broken into two parts: Part 1- Beneath the Remains and Part 2- South of Heaven, both of which are named after metal albums, though neither is a black metal album).
Of course, there are other, smaller differences between the two versions, but a good bit of it is due to the two major changes the movie makes.
I quite enjoyed the movie and got the book around the same time, so I ended up reading the novel shortly after watching the film. The black metal element in the second half can seem to come out of nowhere and perhaps even seem out of place, but I was actually prepared for it to a certain extent, as the author does mention black metal and the influence of the book Lords of Chaos on the novel in a short intro piece at the start of the book. It left me wondering what the hell that was going to mean in context of the story as there wasn't anything of that sort in the movie, aside from it being set in Sweden, which is one of the countries most associated with black metal, being the home of Bathory, Marduk, Dark Funeral, and the experimental noise-based Abruptum, among others. The second part of the novel seems to be, from I have gathered by reading other people's thoughts on the book, where it tends to lose them, at least for those that the book does lose. Others seem to be onboard the whole way through.
For me, I was okay with it, but it does feel a bit off, mostly because I am pretty sure that Nevill is not really into black metal, but rather just had read Lords of Chaos and it gave him some ideas for some of the novel. Which is fine and, honestly, it does make sense, even if it is a bit out of left field. It is a bit amusing at the name-dropping in this section of the book, however, if you are actually, like me, a fan of black metal.
By and large, I do recommend both the movie and the novel. For the most part, it seems the consensus on the book version is the that it is quite good and those who do have complaints about the book seem to focus on that second part, either because they view it as feeling like a completely different book slapped on the end of another story that they were enjoying quite a bit. I can understand that perspective, but I did enjoy the book all the way through. If I had any real gripe about it, I would just say that I really feel that the book could have been shorter. There were a few points where it seemed to me that he could have removed 50 pages or so and just gotten things going along a bit better, but that is really a minor issue. It never bogged the story down to the point that I wanted to start skimming through the book or just quit reading it altogether.
First off, the movie opens with the four friends plus an additional friend all gathered at a pub, discussing what they should do on their next holiday. One of them, Rob, suggests hiking in Sweden. After they leave, another of the group, Luke, wants to stop off and get some booze and Rob goes with him. As it turns out, a couple of thugs are robbing the store at that time. Luke manages to hide before the robbers see him, but Rob is caught right in the aisle and is confronted by the thieves, who end up killing him. Fast forward 6 months and the remaining four friends are in Sweden, hiking the same trails that Rob had suggesting.
None of that is from the book. The book actually starts once they are already hiking in Sweden. The character of Rob was invented for the movie. The death of Rob ends up serving as a way to drive a wedge between Luke and one or two of the other characters, primarily Dom, for a perceived bit of cowardice on Luke's part for not having saved Rob. In the novel, this tension between the same characters is all due to Luke still being a single man who goes out drinking, working shitty dead-end jobs, and having no real serious relationships, while the other three are all married and at least two of them have children. This leaves them feeling like Luke has not grown up, while they have. This develops of the course of the novel, with more details surfacing.
That fairly sizeable change early aside, much of the movie follows the novels quite well. The other major change is the last part of the movie. I won't get into much detail here, just to avoid giving away too much of the story, but the novel and movie go down different pathways, but they aren't completely unrelated. Some elements are present in both versions, but the novel incorporates black metal into this section of the story (the novel is actually broken into two parts: Part 1- Beneath the Remains and Part 2- South of Heaven, both of which are named after metal albums, though neither is a black metal album).
Of course, there are other, smaller differences between the two versions, but a good bit of it is due to the two major changes the movie makes.
I quite enjoyed the movie and got the book around the same time, so I ended up reading the novel shortly after watching the film. The black metal element in the second half can seem to come out of nowhere and perhaps even seem out of place, but I was actually prepared for it to a certain extent, as the author does mention black metal and the influence of the book Lords of Chaos on the novel in a short intro piece at the start of the book. It left me wondering what the hell that was going to mean in context of the story as there wasn't anything of that sort in the movie, aside from it being set in Sweden, which is one of the countries most associated with black metal, being the home of Bathory, Marduk, Dark Funeral, and the experimental noise-based Abruptum, among others. The second part of the novel seems to be, from I have gathered by reading other people's thoughts on the book, where it tends to lose them, at least for those that the book does lose. Others seem to be onboard the whole way through.
For me, I was okay with it, but it does feel a bit off, mostly because I am pretty sure that Nevill is not really into black metal, but rather just had read Lords of Chaos and it gave him some ideas for some of the novel. Which is fine and, honestly, it does make sense, even if it is a bit out of left field. It is a bit amusing at the name-dropping in this section of the book, however, if you are actually, like me, a fan of black metal.
By and large, I do recommend both the movie and the novel. For the most part, it seems the consensus on the book version is the that it is quite good and those who do have complaints about the book seem to focus on that second part, either because they view it as feeling like a completely different book slapped on the end of another story that they were enjoying quite a bit. I can understand that perspective, but I did enjoy the book all the way through. If I had any real gripe about it, I would just say that I really feel that the book could have been shorter. There were a few points where it seemed to me that he could have removed 50 pages or so and just gotten things going along a bit better, but that is really a minor issue. It never bogged the story down to the point that I wanted to start skimming through the book or just quit reading it altogether.
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