Ever since John Boorman’s 1972 survival adventure thriller
film Deliverance emerged into the mainstream, studios and filmmakers
have been clamoring to cash in on the trend of horror involving vacationers
being attacked by disfigured rednecks including but not limited to Walter Hill’s
Southern Comfort.
One which tends
to fly under the radar for most is Peter Carter’s 1977 Canuxploitation epic Rituals
(later renamed The Creeper when it was rereleased in 1982), a film which
brings legendary character actor Hal Holbrook into the leading role. Co-starring Lawrence Dane and Robin Gammell,
the film previously tarnished by Siskel & Ebert is one of the more
realistic physical endurance survival adventure pictures as well as being one
of the most chilling. For all of Deliverance’s
unspeakable horrors, Rituals in some ways goes a bit further.
After a night of drunken banter involving whose
practice is the more demanding, the group awakens to find their boots have been
stolen. DJ ventures out to seek for help
when a severed deer head is hung outside their campsite replete with a snack
wrapped around its spine. Soon after it
doesn’t take long for members of the group to stumble into booby traps
including hidden bear traps in the riverbed while a mysterious stalker only
seen in shadow seems to start picking them off one by one.
Every bit as physically demanding to watch as such Herzogian
fare as Aguirre, the Wrath of God or Fitzcarraldo, you feel for
each and every one of the actors who appear to be really wading through muggy
swamplands, rocky terrain, angry swarms of bees, wild rivers, all the while
navigating this terrain using shoddy thrown together makeshift shoes. Watching it reminded me of the recently
released Ben Wheatley COVID film In the Earth which also concerned the
two main characters being attacked and deprived of their shoes by an unknown
assailant.
Despite being a microbudget Canadian
venture, made on CA$600,000, this is grueling survival action-adventure fare
that occasionally manages to make the viewer cringe. Far creepier than Deliverance with a
more complicated mercurial monster lurking about its epicenter, Rituals is
maybe the bumpiest Hal Holbrook ride next to his 1979 drama Natural Enemies. While the two Holbrook efforts couldn’t be
more different, both manage to chill to the bone in unexpected ways.
Shot
handsomely by The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane cinematographer René
Verzier, Rituals manages to conjure up stunningly beautiful vistas
without leaning into bluescreen matting effects like some of the day-for-night
photography mid-Deliverance and the score by Anne of Green Gables composer
Hagood Hardy is a generally serviceably eerie soundtrack.
The real wonders here are the actors who go
above and beyond the call of duty for a little microbudget indie. Wading through rough and ragged terrain while
still having to act, the film eventually boils down to Hal Holbrook and
Lawrence Dane as the mysterious stalker continues to pick them off and we feel
each and every brutalizing soul crushing step of this arduous ordeal with no
end in sight. You watch and occasionally
fear for the actors who arguably go through more for this little movie than the
ones with bigger paychecks. The film
also includes not one but two eventual David Cronenberg stars from Scanners as
well as Videodrome.
Shot in 1976 but not released until 1977 into American drive-in theaters, critics viciously savaged Rituals right out of the gate including Siskel & Ebert naming it ‘dog of the week’. Having seen the actual film, its like reading the reviews of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate where you’re gobsmacked such a professional film criticism empire could be so shortsighted. Languishing in truncated VHS Hell for many years, the film was in generally terrible shape despite its reputation initially spearheaded by Stephen King as being an underrated gem in his book Danse Macabre.
Seen now, like Natural Enemies which followed a couple of years
after, it is a testament to the screen presence and power of Hal Holbrook and
proof positive Deliverance wasn’t necessarily the very best example of
this survival action-adventure thriller subgenre. Currently residing on Shudder alongside a Scorpion
Releasing blu-ray made from a personal print of the producer’s, Rituals
is more than ripe for rediscovery as a film that perhaps bettered the work than
inspired it.
--Andrew Kotwicki
