'The Ritual' Review: How the Hell Did Al Pacino and Dan Stevens Get Trapped in This Mess of a Horror Movie?

2017's The Ritual, directed by David Bruckner, is one of the best horror films of the last decade. 2025's The Ritual, co-written and directed by David Midell, and starring the likes of Al Pacino and Dan Stevens, is the exact opposite. It shares a name with a better movie, but this dull, ugly-looking film, which comes out on June 6, is nothing more than a near-beat-for-beat retread of The Exorcist. Exorcism-related horror films have been done to death, and if you've seen one, you've often seen them all. Most of them have the same tropes and characters (heroes and villains included), but you might think that if an all-time legend and a soon-to-be one like Pacino and Stevens are involved, then this one must offer something different. Nope. It's painful to write it, but The Ritual will go down as one of the worst movies in both of their respective careers — and Pacino's includes Jack and Jill.