I was introduced to Rituals by Stephen King; not personally, you understand, but via his book Danse Macabre. It’s an excellent read and highly recommended for anyone with a love of horror, be it cinematic or the printed word. One of the many films he referred to was this low -budget Canadian shocker and it was also included in his top 100 horror films at the back of the book.
Now in the early eighties I was a King fanatic (I’m still a big fan) so if the big guy rated it that highly then I wanted to see it. And I did, on a poor quality video cassette rented from the local video emporium; this was in the pre-video nasties era when any Tom, Dick or Harry could set up their own video rental business and Blockbuster had yet to invade these shores.
I was impressed or as impressed as I could be with what I could see on-screen and that wasn’t much. The video had been in a lot of machines before ours and at least a few of them must have found it tasty enough to have a chew on. Added to this was the fact that a lot of the film takes place at night and the film was low budget to start with, so we’re not talking high production values here.
Years later I managed to track down an ex-rental video from America via Amazon.com. This was a lot better quality than the version I first watched, but I later found out that it was cut by ten minutes and was taken from a TV edit. I’ve no idea if the first one I watched was cut or not because too much of it had faded into the mist of memory.
So what’s it about? Well, there are obvious similarities to Deliverance with a group of friends going off into the wilds on vacation only to meet some less than friendly locals and having to fight to stay alive. There are also shades of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and some similarities with a film that was made the same year - The Hills Have Eyes (1977); still, while it may not be original, it is well made.
Article comments
1 - Daufhin Thorndike
I couldn't agree more! I have always loved this film. It does so much with so little, and it is more disturbing and frightening than 99% of what the studios are putting out these days. It deserves a dvd release, and a restoration of the missing ten minutes. I, for one, have only seen the editied tv version, and would love to see what I missed someday. Unfortunately, it seems as though i might have a better chance finding discarded kryptonite than finding an original print of this movie. Fans of this need to check out another Peter Carter film called "The Intruder Within" released around 1980 I believe. It takes place on an oil rig in the middle of the arctic ocean and is scary as hell from what I recall. I used to see it on late night television when I was kid. It's tough to find it even on vhs now, but it, too, deserves a dvd release.
2 - Jeremy
I have it on DVD. It's in a value pack with 99 other movies, and under the name The Creeper, though. Still pretty badly lit, but a gripping and suspenseful film. The river trap made me cringe.