When four old University friends set off into the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle, they aim to briefly escape the problems of their lives and reconnect with one another. But when Luke, the only man still single and living a precarious existence, finds he has little left in common with his well-heeled friends, tensions rise. With limited experience between them, a shortcut meant to ease their hike turns into a nightmare scenario that could cost them their lives. Lost, hungry, and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, Luke figures things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
But then they stumble across an old habitation. Ancient artifacts decorate the walls and there are bones scattered upon the dry floors. The residue of old rites and pagan sacrifice for something that still exists in the forest. Something responsible for the bestial presence that follows their every step. As the four friends stagger in the direction of salvation, they learn that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees . . .
Jesus Christ, man.
I watched “The Ritual” when it came out on Netflix back in 2017 & remember thinking it was super scary (I just rewatched it, and yup! Still nightmare fuel).
But I don’t think anything would have prepared me for reading Adam Nevill’s book. This is for sure the most grueling survival horror novel I’ve ever read.
THE RITUAL is not something you enjoy. It’s something you endure. I had a couple issues with the book on the whole & I’ll mention those as I go, but wow. This was…something else.
There are major differences between the book & the movie, and while I’ll try not to belabor the point, I need to at least mention the biggest difference while both the book & movie are really fresh in my mind: there is no Rob in the book.
The movie kicks off with a group of five friends. Rob, Luke, Hutch, Dom, and Phil are out drinking, and talking about where they might take their next big trip together. After leaving the pub, Rob & Luke head into a liquor store to get a bottle of something to finish the night with. Only they walk straight into a robbery, and Rob is violently murdered.
Luke freezes & doesn’t intervene. So there’s Luke’s motivation in a nutshell in the movie. He feels guilty. He feels ashamed. He feels like he should have done something. And he suspects all his friends feel the same, even if no one comes out and says it. One year later, the boys take a hiking trip to Sweden to honor Rob’s memory.
But none of this happens in the book, and again, there is no Rob. In the book, the boys get together just to catch up from time to time, and this big excursion into the wilderness is just the latest iteration. And Luke’s “motivations” are really more the personal demons he is struggling with. A sense of inadequacy among the friend group, as he’s the one who hasn’t properly “settled down.” I think what they did with the movie makes sense, as it gives you a very quick & clear cut idea of just how tormented Luke is.
Whereas in the book, there are times when it feels like Luke is just an angry, bitter asshole. But there’s a lot more to him than this, you just need to ride out 400 pages to really get there…so yeah, the inclusion of Rob definitely makes a lot of sense for the adaptation.
I think what shocked me most about the book overall is just how unrelenting it is. Things begin to go wrong for Luke, Hutch, Dom, and Phil almost immediately. They set out into the wilds of Sweden and become almost hopelessly lost right away. So there’s just no warm-up, no comfortable preamble to the terror. I think it’s honestly by page 15 (20 at the latest) that the first unspeakable horror is visited upon these guys, and Nevill rarely takes his foot off the gas from this point.
At times, THE RITUAL felt almost punishing to me, and it certainly affected my reading pace. But Nevill is fucking masterful at dropping you into the middle of this impossibly dense forest & building an oppressive sense of dread within you. A sense of dread that feels unending. And the longer it goes on, and the more these men endure, you can’t help but feel a near-total sense of hopelessness. I really can’t remember a book having that kind of effect on me. At least not recently.
One thing about THE RITUAL that grated on me was Luke’s incessant fatphobia towards Phil & Dom. It’s toned way down in the movie, but it’s so pervasive in the book. I feel like this review has been all over the place, but hopefully it’s coming across that I was very impressed with this book & definitely want to check out more of Nevill’s work. That said, I really hope the fatphobia is more to do with Luke’s character than it is with Nevill’s writing. I’m willing to give it another shot.
I think I’ve written this review almost as if everyone has seen the movie that’s based on it, and now I realize that’s probably not the case. And while I try (and usually fail) to spend less & less time describing the plot of books, I feel a bit wobbly having spent so little time on the plot.
Fortunately, it’s quite simple: four college friends reunite & take a trip to go hiking in northern Sweden. But there is something ancient & evil waiting for them in the forest. They become lost & disoriented. They start fighting amongst themselves. And one by one, they are hunted.
This was really epic stuff, and a really cool blend of survival & folk horror. I can see why this book lands on a lot of lists for the best horror novels of the last ~10-15 years, it very much deserves to be there. This one seriously rattled me. I spend a halfway decent amount of time hiking in the woods and I have no doubt some of this book’s more unnerving moments will creep into my mind when I’m out there, alone.
Grimdark Dad 