The MCU is not the only film franchise to tackle Norse mythology, particularly Loki, the God of Mischief. ‘The Ritual,’ a supernatural horror film from the United Kingdom released in 2017, is an unusual blend of horror and Norse mythology.
The Ritual is an adaptation of Adam Neville’s 2011 novel of the same name, directed by David Bruckner and written by Joe Barton. This Netflix surprise smash follows four college students as they gather to go trekking in Sweden in memory of a buddy who was brutally murdered six months prior.
The story takes a turn as the storyline unfolds when the group chooses to take a shortcut across the forest. In the unwelcoming woodland, the ensemble has a succession of terrifying visions and dreams. They have a feeling that something nefarious is at the helm of their misery. To add to the intrigue, the film has a lot of psychological overtones, especially when it comes to the protagonist Luke.
Adam Neville was clearly influenced by ‘The Blair Witch Project,’ H.P. Lovecraft’s works, and Norse mythology, and Bruckner and Barton’s adaptation has brilliantly caught that essence. The film’s score was composed by Ben Lovett, a music composer. He previously collaborated with Bruckner on the 2007 film ‘The Signal.’
The cast includes Rafe Spall as Luke, Arsher Ali as Phil, Robert James-Collier as Hutch, and Sam Troughton as Dom, who bring everything to life.
So, let us get started on exposing the conspiracy and unraveling all of the events. There will be major spoilers ahead!
Plot: Summary
The movie begins with five college friends – Phil, Hutch, Dom, Luke, and Rob, having a great time at a pub as they plan a trip together. Rob suggests they go to Sweden for a hike but he is turned down by the others who wanted to do something else.
After some time, Luke and Rob leave the pub and go to a store to get more alcohol. However, some robbers rain on their parade as they try to rob the store. Luke manages to hide but Rob isn’t so lucky. The robbers harass him for his valuables, in particular, his wedding ring. Luke wants to help his friend but he is too scared to intervene. Meanwhile, the robbers get desperate for the ring and kill Rob brutally.
This is followed by a time skip. Six months later, the remaining four of the group (i.e. Luke, Hutch, Dom, and Phil) decide to execute the plan that Rob had proposed that day at the pub. Picking Kungsleden in northern Sweden as their destination, they embark on a hiking trip to honor Rob’s memory. They reach the summit of a hill and build Rob a shrine, as a token of their last goodbye.
On the next day, misfortune befalls Dom as he accidentally gets a pretty bad knee injury. The group decides that he will not be able to hike with it and that they should probably head back as soon as they can. Hutch points at the map and suggests that they take a shortcut. Now, if you know anything about horror movies, shortcuts are never the correct option.
They decide to cut through the forests instead of using the marked trail, to help out Dom with not having to walk as much. Displacement over distance. They enter the forest but things begin to go south from there. They experience strange things, such as the sight of a gutted elk hanging from several branches and strange symbols that were carved into the trees.
Night falls and there is a severe downpour of rain, making things worse. The group finds shelter in the rainstorm and comes across an abandoned cabin. They break in and spend the night there. Inside the cabin, they find necklaces that had symbols similar to the ones carved into the trees. They also see a statue made of twigs, that had a headless human torso and antlers instead of hands. Luke begins to have nightmares of the robbery at night.
The group wakes up the next morning but to their surprise, Luke seems to have a bleeding chest. His wounds looked like strange punctures. An even stranger sight awaited them as they found Phil praying to the statue, naked. Turns out that everyone had had nightmares last night. Phil wakes up screaming while Hutch ends up peeing his pants. However, their actions weren’t conscious decisions which were quite disturbing, so they tried to find a way out of the situation. As they tried to figure out their location, Luke spotted a figure amongst the trees. To maintain the essence of every horror movie where the one seeing the strange patterns is dismissed by another person, Dom doubts what Luke saw and they get into an argument. The movie makes it apparent that Luke felt a sense of guilt for Rob’s death as he did nothing but save himself and Dom brings that up, calling Luke a coward for letting Rob die.
That night, Luke once again begins to have the same nightmare but Phil’s screams awaken him. He comes out of his tent and sees that Hutch’s tent had partially collapsed and was empty. Luke, Dom, and Hutch rush into the wilderness to search for their missing friend, but they get lost and are unable to get back to their campsite.
Lacking in supplies, they keep looking for Hutch and finally find him impaled on tree branches, gutted, similar to the elk and the statue. They improvise a burial. Later, an unseen creature drags Phil away and impales him on a tree. Luke and Dom realize that it has been stalking them all this while and make a run for it. The creature begins to chase them but the two friends find a torch-lined path that leads them to a small settlement. They hide in a cottage but are knocked unconscious.
After awakening, they realize that they were being restrained in a cellar. An elderly woman looks into Luke’s wounds and reveals that she had a similar one. She orders two men to take Dom upstairs and a younger woman explains to them that preparations were being made for a sacrifice.
After some time, a severely beat up Dom meets with Luke and tells him that he was going to be sacrificed to the creature. He urges Luke to run away and destroy the settlement before they sacrifice him as well. Luke still being restrained, breaks his thumb to break free partially while the townsfolk tie-up Dom outside.
As the ritual process proceeds, Dom has a vision of his wife emerging from the forest whereas it was actually the creature itself. It picks Dom up and impales him to a nearby tree. After a while, the young woman returns and Luke asks her about the creature. She tells him that it is a Jötunn – an off-spring of Loki and an ancient God-like entity. The cult provided sacrifices to this entity for immortality, and they had chosen Luke to either worship it or be sacrificed.
She leaves and Luke frees himself. Armed with a torch, he ventures upstairs and finds a congregation of mummified worshippers, which moved. Luke sets them on fire, burning down the cabin. It attracts the Jötunn, who picks up the woman. Luke next gets his hands on a hunting rifle and kills a follower downstairs. He picks up an axe while the creature kills the woman. Luke shoots at it and runs away.
The Jötunn chases him and begins to cripple his mind with hallucinations of Rob dying and catches Luke, forcing him to his knees so that he submits. Luke incapacitates it with his axe. After coming across more hallucinatory signposts, he finally finds himself in an open field while the Jötunn roars in anger as it cannot leave the forest. Luke shouts back at it triumphantly and starts walking on a lonely paved road. The movie ends.
The movie’s brilliance lies in its subtlety and symbolism, which acts as an element that foreshadows the entire plot. This trait in itself is the mark of stellar direction. The scene of Rob’s robbery feels like it is actually Luke’s nightmare, once it cuts to the next scene six months later. He carries the burden of guilt as he did not intervene during the robbery and blames himself for Rob’s death.
Throughout the movie, this is a recurring nightmare for Luke and even in the end, he is the sole survivor amongst his friends. The vision of the gutted elk also foresaw how the deaths would pan out as every cast member died from being gutted by the Jötunn.
Creepy production design and a score that conveys the feeling of the theme amp up the experience of watching ‘The Ritual’. Even though the movie is not scary per se, it is thrilling. It takes the viewers on a journey and gets them emotionally invested in the friendship of Luke, Phil, Dom, and Hutch and then begins to kill them off, one by one.
This Blair Witch x Norse mythology x H.P. Lovecraft project creates a sense of doom from the very moment the friends make the ill-fated decision to take the shortcut.
Jötunn Moder: Bastard Offspring of Loki – Explained
Moder is the primary antagonist of the British horror novel ‘The Ritual’ by Adam Nevill, as well as its cinematic adaptation of the same name. She is a Jötunn, similar to her father, the Norse God of Mischief, Loki, who originally hails from Jötunheim. In the novel and the movie, she inhabits the wilderness of Northern Sweden and is revered by a group of cultists living in a nearby settlement. They offer her sacrifices while she grants them protection and immortality.
Jötunn is Loki’s bastard offspring and is one of the Jötnarr, a race in Norse mythology of trolls and giant-like Gods who rivaled the Asgardian Gods. She is an elk-like monster with a skeletal head, bright yellow eyes, hands like that of a human, and antlers.
Moder has one objective – she stalks travelers who come to her lair and ‘marks’ whoever has suffered from emotional pain. In this case, Luke, because he had witnessed Rob’s death and considered himself to be guilty. That person is then given a choice between worshipping Moder or dying at her hands. The ones who are not marked are tortured, killed, and sacrificed.
After centuries, Moder has now amassed a cult of worshippers, mainly consisting of missing people who have traveled the forest that is her home. Moder protects them from outsiders and grants them immortality. In ‘The Ritual’, Moder attempted to turn Luke into one of her cult worshippers but he retaliated by incapacitating it with an axe.
Moder strays away from the light and channels a darker side of Norse mythology. Throughout pop culture, Jötunheim has been portrayed as ‘dark’ in some way or the other. This is because the giants of the Jötnar race menace the Gods of Asgard and the humans of Midgard, making it a fairly suitable choice for antagonizing when writing stories with Norse mythology as a reference.
Moder has dominion over the woodlands where Luke and his friends lose their way. She considers it to be trespassing and singles out the most emotionally troubled person to ‘mark’. She then uses her abilities to make them relive and confront the moments that caused the emotional trauma, over and over again, in the form of visions and nightmares. She wants to convert them into one of her worshippers while executing the others.
Moder is unforgiving and even ruthless, as she expects her cult of worshippers to fulfill her with periodical sacrifices. She is also unwavering if the cult members fail at keeping prisoners or potential sacrifices in check, or harm elders on the verge of death. They do not have to have the motive to do so, Moder will slaughter them even if the transgressions are committed accidentally.
However, Moder does show mercy and a less ruthless side as she grants her followers immortality once they pledge their service to her. She protects them from her wrath and otherworldly troubles, and only resorts to force if they are defiant.
Its appearance resembles the primordial giants or troll-like deities of Jötunheim. Similar to other Jötnars such as Fenrir and Jormungandr, Moder has an animalistic and beast-like form instead of a stereotypical humanoid giant-like form. It is evidently elk-like, has spikes protruding along her spine, while her body is overgrown with plant matter. Her hands are like that of a human while her head looks like a decapitated human torso, with antlers instead of arms and arms instead of legs. To make things stranger about this creature, it has glowing eyes where its crotch is supposed to be.
Moder has a range of powers and abilities, which she uses to subdue her potential prey, as the local deity of the pine forests in Northern Sweden.
It has amped up supernatural strength, allowing it to carry grown elks and humans alike and impaling them on the sharp twigs of nearby pine trees, as she does with the elk, Hutch, Phil, and Dom. It is presumed that she disembowels them all with her bare hands.
Being a supernatural giant, Moder is also extremely durable. It is tremendously difficult for humans to cause significant injury to Moder using modern weapons. Hunting rifles that are damaging enough for bigger animals such as elks, inflict mere scratches on her. She can also withstand axe blows on the face even though it disorients her momentarily.
The reason why Moder had been able to amass a cult of worshippers was that she granted them immortality. Being a pagan god, Moder herself did not age and could live forever, unless more powerful beings killed her.
Because there’s overgrown plant matter around her body, the wilderness is the ideal habitat for Moder. This helps her camouflage herself whenever, allowing her to sneak up on her prey and go unnoticed.
One of Moder’s deadliest abilities is her magical feats. And it’s not just any magical feat; she can toy with the psyche of her victims, playing with their deepest emotional fears and memories. Moder uses this to determine who can be a potential follower among those entering her domain. This ability transcends the use of illusions as a manipulation tactic. She creates hallucinations based on her target’s emotional fear, making them relive their worst memories. We see her doing this to Luke over and over again, making him relive Rob’s death.
She also uses this on Hutch, Phil, and Dom, as first seen when they wake up in the cabin to a naked Phil worshipping its effigy, a screaming Dom, and a Hutch who peed his pants.
She also possesses limited omniscience, which is the ability to understand and be aware of her surroundings at all times, in this case, the pine forest which is her domain. The Jötunn mentally learns everything about those entering her borders, which gives it the ability to learn about their emotional pain.
Moder also uses this tactic called marking on its targets. She marks them magically, as she does with Luke and every other member of the cult.
She can also shapeshift, an ability she demonstrates towards the very end while Dom is being sacrificed. She turns into Dom’s wife and unveils her true form when she executes him. With limited omniscience, Moder knows everything about Dom.
Moder can also bless those who worship and pay tributes to her. She ensures their prosperity and protects them from outsiders. She also makes them immortal and immune to disease. The recipients of her blessing can be killed after which they continue to age until they turn into mummified husks. These husks are tended by the younger peers of the cult.
Moder’s powers extend all across her personal domain, making it the extension of her very being. However, Moder is also powerless over everything outside the forest, which is why Luke was able to escape her.
When it comes down to Norse mythology by itself, a Jötunn is slightly different. Even though they are giant-like beasts who are revered for their super strength, they look different from an elk-like antlered beast as has been portrayed in ‘The Ritual’. Rather, they are more similar to dwarves, despite being giants, than to elks.
However, they are not a homogeneous species. Some are as tall as humans themselves. They are spirits of nature and do not side with the Gods of the Norse pantheon, even though Thor and Odin, despite being Asgardians, are descendants of the Jötunn.
Jötunnheim is one of the Nine Realms in Norse Mythology and Jötunns are some of its oldest, most primordial beings. All of their stories show the rocky relationship humans share with nature and are dominant in folk horror where lore and tradition collide with the new world order.
At the end of the movie, we hear a roaring Moder, once Luke leaves its domain, having burnt down its cult. It can be presumed that she had to go back to building her cult from scratch.
Why didn’t the Jötunn kill Luke?
As we already know, Moder looks for victims who are under significant emotional turmoil, to make them submit to her and join her cult. Even though the entire group of friends was mentally impaled following Rob’s murder, Luke was the one who had witnessed it first hand, making his trauma tenfold compared to the others. To make matters worse, Luke hid when Rob was killed and did not intervene as the robbers tried to take away his valuables. Naturally, Luke took all the guilt upon himself. Even though it is natural for the human body to shut down and freeze as a response to a traumatizing situation, the guilt of Rob’s death had taken over Luke’s mind.
As Moder can learn everything about whatever is in her domain, she can sense the emotional turmoil in Luke. So, she makes Luke her target, marking him as a new addition to her cult. Towards the end of the film, Luke is forced on his knees to submit to Moder and eventually loses his fighting spirit. Even though she could have killed him and impaled him to a tree-like she did with the others, Moder does not kill Luke. This is because Moder wanted Luke to submit to her instead. Killing him off would mean that she went through all that trouble, such as marking him, killing his friends, and making them hallucinate for nothing.
The Ritual or The Ritual: Book versus Movie?
Generally, movie adaptations are never nearly as good as its books, especially when it comes down to the fantasy genre, with Percy Jackson taking the throne for the worst book to movie adaptation. Harry Potter, despite its immense popularity and box office success, is not nearly as good as its books and in particular, The Half-Blood Prince.
However, ‘The Ritual is not a series and instead, just one novel, making it easier for David Bruckner and Joe Barton to adapt. The film canonically follows some plot points of Adam Nevill’s novel up until the second half, where things stray away completely. However, even the first half has several plot points that were not there in the novel.
For example, the premise under which the friends decide to go hiking is very different. As the movie deals with Luke witnessing Rob’s death and the group going for the hike to commemorate his memory, the novel has no Rob.
The setting for their hike, although the same, differs in some aspects. Even though the wilderness feels much darker and more foreboding in the novel, the movie has Bruckner’s long-time friend and collaborator composing a dark and tense score for it, which helps make things a step up and above. Haunting cinematography is just the cherry on top.
As the novel generates a larger sense of hopelessness with wilderness which feels like it’s closing in from all sides, the movie brings out the incident of Rob’s death over and over again, to toy with Luke mentally.
The movie also has Luke and Dom finding a settlement where they are held captive by the cult worshippers of Moder. They torture Dom before sacrificing him to the Jötunn, while Luke is the last man standing. In the novel, the protagonist is similar to Luke in the sense that he is the last man standing as well. But once again, the premise is different.
In Nevill’s novel, the protagonist runs from the monster for days and is then held hostage by a group of teenagers who were in a death metal band. They wanted to sacrifice him and summon a monster from the forest. This premise in itself strikes a chord that is not nearly as unsettling as the setting itself and instead, knocks the air out of the thrill. Personally, the plot point with the cult was a lot better than the one with a bunch of edgy teenagers.
There’s also the fact that in the book, the Jötunn is a goat-like monster that is not nearly as scary as the creepy antler-headed elk-giant we see in the movie.
Will The Ritual have a sequel?
Bruckner had revealed that the movie deals with ‘masculinity in crisis. He also deals with the concept of ‘outgrowing your friends’, as the director believes that men outgrow their friends when they get older. This reflects in the dynamic of the group, as they embark on the hiking trip. One scene, in particular, sees Dom blaming Luke for aiding Rob’s death.
The movie dives into a lot of essentially existential dread, before introducing the audience to the darkness of Moder’s domain. Following Rob’s death, Luke finds himself traumatized, feeling guilty about not intervening before he was killed. He is plagued by horror before Bruckner introduces the more ‘in-your-face’ aspects of horror into the film.
In the end, when he escapes the Jötunn and roars back at it, it signifies that Luke is finally letting go of his pent-up sadness, trauma, and pain. Not just that, but he has also destroyed Moder’s cult and the village. You could say that the movie wraps everything up perfectly and every plot point gets its closure, except the one with the fate of the Jötunn. This brings up a burning question in the minds of the audience. Will there be a sequel for ‘The Ritual’?
Well, it is not known whether there will be a sequel or not, but we can theorize where it will be heading. The movie may deal with a whole new group of travelers entering the Jötunn’s domain as it attempts to build its cult once again. However, this might just be a repetition of what has already happened in the first movie. As Bruckner primarily deals with more psychological concepts, ‘The Ritual 2’ is likely to go deeper than a repetition. In some ways, it is similar to ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’, a show that originally started as a mecha anime, where huge mech robots fight one another but it eventually diverged into a much more psychological show, dealing with the mental turmoil faced by the protagonist and the deuteragonists.
‘The Ritual’ is similar in that aspect and a sequel will likely see the return of Luke, who is now dealing with the trauma of losing all of his friends. Despite having outgrown them, he is obviously traumatized by their deaths. The Jötunn may return in his visions, as Luke goes back to the civilization and does not intend to return to the wilderness ever again.
Without any official notice from Bruckner, it is hard to pinpoint what may happen in the sequel. However, if it does happen, we hope that Rafe Spall reprises his role as Luke and does it justice once again.