The Al Pacino-led exorcism thriller The Ritual is vile. Not just for its horror, but its message

Two separate times in David Middel's horror film The Ritual, title cards pop up declaring that you are watching the most well-documented case of demonic possession in history. A final message then asserts that "debate persists" over whether this instance — the 1928 exorcism of Emma Schmidt — was a case of medical or spiritual malady. 

Having made it to the end of this offensive mess, I can only assume that "debate" is a reference to the fact that The Ritual believes you are an evil imbecile if you disagree with the practice of exorcism — a practice that has led to literal torture deaths across the world. 

Middel also seems to suggest that spirits and demons are not only real, but they only continue to exist because egghead authorities don't believe hard enough — even in the face of extraordinary and frightening evidence that you should be calling 911 for the bleeding, wailing, vomiting young woman instead of dousing her with holy water.

This is not a knock against religiosity, or even Christianity itself; The Ritual's central didactic instruction isn't to believe in a higher power. Instead, it's an absurdly specific, fearfully atavistic and almost despairingly cruel directive not to listen to the voice of reason in the face of fatal consequences.

It's all strung around the neck of Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens), a faltering parish priest in the small town of Earling, Iowa. He's already struggling with conflicting responsibility and powerless leadership when a bishop bluntly informs him his church will soon be the site of an exorcism.

It's Emma, you see: she's been exhibiting all the telltale symptoms of mental illness. Ones that through time immemorial have led to countless women's ostracization, forced hospitalization and lobotomies — all of which, for example, were perpetrated against little-known Kennedy sister Rosemary when she didn't act presidential enough for the presidential family. 

But she's far from alone in the screaming annals of time. Throughout history, such practices have forged a horrifying pattern of abhorrent, confused and counterproductive treatments to silence, control and kill women. Just Google where the word "hysteria" comes from (also, chillingly, its diagnosis).

Instead of scientific tortures or burning at the stake, the men in Emma's life have opted for a more traditional method. Looking for all the world like a Jeremiah Johnson Jesuit, Father Theophilus Riesinger (Al Pacino) has apparently chosen to give up his day job hanging out beneath bridges to demand tolls from fairy tale travellers. Now, he'd like to excise the spirits from poor Emma's battered and bruised body. 

All Steiger needs to do is take notes, and keep the pesky nuns and Reverend Mother (Patricia Heaton) from complaining too much about the very loud atrocities being committed beneath their bedrooms.

Dangerous message

Unfortunately, that proves a bit too much for that meddling kid (i.e. non-psychopath). Instead, Steiger impudently questions the wisdom of treating a clearly suffering woman with assault instead of, say, literally anything else. 

Too bad he's an idiot, apparently. Because as Riesinger assures him, his fancy-dancy doctors can't save Emma, can't save him, can't save any of us. This is something far more "ancient" we're dealing with here. Any second-guessing or second opinions will invariably lead to everyone's doom. 

This is the film's supposed central message, allowed to bloom even as its supposed central character, Steiger, fades inauspiciously into the background, while Riesinger and Schmidt graduate to blood-spattered moralistic caricatures, which are bestowed with all the depth, accuracy and effectiveness of those anti-drug D.A.R.E. comics (which in some cases actually got kids to do drugs more). 

An equally trite and terrifying tone (in neither case intentional) drips through this sad affair. If it were made with even a modicum of artistry, the film may have run the risk of sparking a roaring prairie fire of collective madness. Something this insidious, made proficiently, could well have become another Michelle Remembers, the Canadian ritual-abuse memoir so incorrect and inflammatory it set off the Satanic panic.

Luckily, The Ritual is garbage. But it's noxious, like a tire fire that, if ignored, could spark a human tragedy going on for years or even centuries. So instead of ignorance, let's be better: let's look the Devil right in the face, and deal with what makes The Ritual a steaming pile of belching trash, deserving of its own exclusion zone at least the size of Chernobyl's. 

It's not the awkward, stilted writing. It's not the Office-style handheld zooms, making this supernatural horror look not unlike a daytime TV sitcom. It's not even Pacino's bizarre accent, seemingly a low-effort homage to his years of terrible and forgettable roles taken to recover from Ponzi scheme-induced financial ruin.

No, the truly repugnant point of this movie comes toward the end, where after 90 minutes of dancing around Steiger's milquetoast hemming and hawing, Midell gives up the pretence of evenhandedness.

In a scene that hits you over the head so hard it could star in Concussion, The Ritual combines liturgy, a dropped bible and laughable CGI smoke straight out of Lost to make its case. The suggestion is that Steiger was a moron to ever doubt. You can deal with mental illness at home, the film proclaims. All you need is rope, a wrought-iron bed frame and the privacy of a securely locked cellar.

It is an asinine lesson, but also a cruel and dangerous one. It comes after in-movie assurances that 1920s medicine was unable to find anything medically or "biologically" wrong, sure — as a smugly (and historically, and scientifically) ignorant pat on the back for our resident exorcists.

It also ignores the fact that self-righteous belief in the face of these practices does result in death. It ignores that exorcists killed Anneliese Michel. That exorcists killed Tylee Ryan and Joshua Jaxon (JJ) Vallow. That, according to Vice, exorcists traumatized Canadian Marie McClellan and continue to prod others into demanding the treatment for themselves.

Vile morals

All in all, it's vile. It's as if someone made a new Bambi, except now his mother dies because she stupidly neglected to do enough whippets. Or a Stand By Me where, instead of relying on the power and fleeting beauty of boyhood friendship, Gordie tells a crying Chris of course the pain will go away. All he has to do is start drinking gin. 

Or if in Roots, Kunta Kinte gave in before even the first lashing. 

"Isn't it great being a slave?" he asks this time, smiling dopily at the camera. "I am Toby Obedientman."

Cue credits. Happy ending. Did you learn something? 

Basically, so ends The Ritual — if not quite so cartoonish, just as offensive, dangerous, stupid and wrong.