‘The Ritual’: Does It Sacrifice Exorcism Accuracy For Drama?

I love a good exorcism film. The Ritual, hitting theaters on June 6, certainly is an exorcism film, but is it a good one?

Like William Peter Blatty’s book and screenplay for the 1970s classic The Exorcist, The Ritual is based on a real story. For what it’s worth, it’s more accurate to the original than The Exorcist.

And, unlike 2023’s The Pope’s Exorcist — very loosely based on a real story — there aren’t any big CGI effects or pyrotechnics.

Also, unlike Fox’s TV version of The Exorcist in 2016, no one uncovers a clerical cabal creating a Satanic power cult.

It does, like all these other films — and the season-one finale of The Exorcist TV series — emphasize the true power of a Catholic exorcism, which lies in faith and prayer.

If you’ve noticed that I’ve so far dodged the question of whether it’s good … you’re not wrong. I’ll get back to that in a bit.

What Is The Ritual About?

The inspiration for the film is an extensively documented, real-life, protracted exorcism case which took place the heartland in the late 1920s.

Here’s an excerpt of a TIME Magazine story about the incident, from 1936.

In 1928, a certain 40-year-old woman was taken first to a church, then to a Franciscan convent in Earling, Iowa. Apparently an energumen, she had exhibited symptoms of diabolical possession for a dozen years: she could not pray, take communion or even pronounce the name of Christ.

Doctors had examined her, found her neither mentally nor physically abnormal. With the approval of the Bishop of Des Moines, the woman was made ready for exorcism by learned Father Theophilus, who upon 19 prior occasions had successfully made use of the Church’s ancient rite, canonically available to all priests, for casting out devils.

However, contrary to some reports, this isn’t the case that inspired The Exorcist. That one involved a teenage boy in Maryland and St. Louis in 1949.

Directed by David Midell and written by him and Enrico Natale, The Ritual stars Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as parish priest Father Joseph Steiger, who must observe and record notes on the exorcism of a young woman, Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen), being conducted at a convent.

Al Pacino plays Father Theophilus Riesinger, a Capucin Franciscan who is a veteran of many exorcisms — including an earlier one on Emma that apparently didn’t stick.

Catholic actress Patricia Heaton plays the Mother Superior of the convent, whose young nuns suffer quite a bit from trying to help the possessed woman.

So, It’s Accurate?

The general facts of the story are reasonably close to the original (other than the movie Emma being quite a bit younger), and there are no winged demons flying around or buildings exploding.

The film also doesn’t waste a lot of time waffling about whether or not Emma is possessed or has some other issue. Father Riesinger is convinced she’s under demonic influence, and just gets on with it.

The Ritual also shows that real-life exorcisms — the very small percentage of cases that don’t turn out to be something else, like mental illness — are a real slog. Freeing the victim doesn’t happen quickly or easily.

Unfortunately, without fantastical creatures or splashy special effects, watching an exorcism just isn’t that dramatic.

Remember that question I asked earlier?

So, Is The Ritual Good?

If you’re looking for a serious film about battling demonic evil in a realistic way — with a requisite crisis of faith for one of the priests — The Ritual is fine. It’s dark, gritty, atmospheric, and shows a great respect for Catholic belief and practice.

There are a few jump scares, but it’s not a sensationalistic horror flick. So, if you’re expecting that, you’ll be disappointed.

After watching The Pope’s Exorcist, I said to a publicist that the film was really silly, but it was all right. Said the same thing about The Nun in 2018.

However, The Ritual is not silly at all. It asks serious questions and deals with them in a serious way.

Unfortunately, that means it’s not much fun — and it wasn’t intended to be.

As Midell said to the Boston Herald:

“Subject matter that asks questions about what people are willing to do to help those who are vulnerable around them.

“At its heart,” he said in a phone interview, “this is really about a group of people who come together to help a very, very vulnerable woman. And in the process, they put themselves at physical, spiritual and psychological risk.”

He’s quite correct, and The Ritual is not going to please people going in looking for demonic possession to be disproved, for Catholicism to be discredited, or for whiz-bang visuals, giant spiders, or other tropes of modern horror.

Like Luke Skywalker’s journey into the cave in The Empire Strikes Back, your experience of the film depends on what you take with you.