~-"But there is a God in these woods. A real one. You can be sure of it. Christians call him a demon. But this is God. Just not their God...."~

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~-"My old counselor used to say, 'If a shortcut was really short, it wouldn't be called a shortcut, it would just be a route.'"~

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~-“It’s fucking original here. It’s so original that no one in their right mind would come here for the weekend.”~

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Characters in the book and film utter it at the beginning of a hike through a deep Swedish forest, complaining about the Spartan conditions and lack of civilization, after which the atmosphere in the story begins to rapidly change to an ominous one. This picture definitely has its own philosophy and a true reflection of reality👁‍🗨🌲🥀

Thank you so much, Adam Neville and David Bruckner🌘

It is several times higher than an ordinary moose. The black body has four limbs like a hoofed one, the figure also resembles a moose hunched in the back, but do not be fooled. This is an ancient and cruel deity. Cruel, fast, cunning, stalking, obsessed. Loki's daughter. The goddess of the dark forest and its recluse🌫🦌

Her head is an inverted human body without a head on the contrary: the horns are in place of the hands, and where the legs should be at the body, her personal hands hang down. Her eyes are two evil lights deepened into a part of the human body as if under a hood. Dreary roar. Attentive.

It is several times higher than an ordinary moose. The black body has four limbs like a hoofed one, the figure also resembles a moose hunched in the back, but do not be fooled. This is an ancient and cruel deity, not an animal. Her head is an inverted human body without a head on the contrary: the horns are in place of the hands, and where the legs should be at the body, her personal hands hang down. Her eyes are two evil lights deepened into a part of the human body as if under a hood. The hair on the ends of the hooves is sparse and matted.

A shaggy semblance of hair, like ragged moss in black and gray, hangs down where the temples could be. Whether it's a roar or a howl is unknown. There is no tail, only a coccyx. The spine is pronounced, there are sharp bone growths on the back. In addition to the main arms and four hooves, there are two arms from the lower abdomen... Despite her enormous strength and size, she is very flexible when needed.

Immortal, though unable to leave the confines of the Swedish Forest, she will savagely pursue her victims to the very edge. If she captures unwanted victims, she knocks them down, or simply tramples them underfoot, but her favorite is ritual killing. She grabs her victim with her hands on her front body, carries them, and impales them like a shrike on the branches of tall mosens, leaving bloody garlands and warnings for others throughout the forest. Easily breaks the necks of victims. Or maybe she'll just decide to break someone's chest and pull out their heart alive, or grab the unfortunate person's head and gouge out their eyes. She breathes heavily, and she has a suffocating aura that evokes animal fear. Stubborn in her goals, she will smash through heavy shelters or tree hollows, and rush through any deadfall if she needs to get someone, although the greater the resistance, the more sophisticated the execution. In the film, she had her own cult following; she was feared and revered.

So if you have chosen - the creature stands on its hind hooves, bends its hind legs like a horse and turns its upper arms above its head in a gesture of prayer...

How she differentiates her victims into those she wants and those she doesn't remains a mystery. Usually, these are the people who survived and maintained their sanity even in the most difficult conditions, without succumbing to panic.

But with her, things can go wrong; her tolerance can very quickly turn into a thirst for killing. She can also strangle them with her hands from the front or throw them violently. In this way, she expresses her honor and invites possessed people to join her forest cult. In case of refusal, she will try to kidnap the person by force and drag him where he needs to go, but if this drags on and during the pursuit she is attacked and disrespected, even the chosen one can be killed.She is also attracted to those who are imbued with the weight of guilt and grief, bound by fear but wish to overcome it.

She demands that one kneel before her in exchange for immortality. (For immortality, the cultists lived in isolation and therefore offered her human sacrifices.) They tried not to speak or shout in her presence, not even to dare look in her direction or raise their gaze without her permission; it was considered safe (her fact) to simply bow to the ground and look down. She herself chooses who is worthy of immortality and her grace, and who is destined only for oblivion. Apparently, the creature also cannot tolerate insolence, disrespect, and excess in all things.

PS: Gods be damned, both the book and the movie were absolutely AWESOME. This is one of those unconventional mythological horrors that's frightening through long buildup and playing with human nature and fears, rather than overdoing it with slasher fare or trying to give this or that character's actions a backstory or logic! It is a majestic grotesque and my only wish is that the mythology genre will flourish in the direction of the psychological thriller.

Beyond the chilling folklore horror, The Ritual deeply explores themes of guilt and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).🛐