The Ritual by Adam Nevill (UK: Pan Macmillan, 2011).
Somebody had to do it. It was inevitable really. I mean the combining of
Deliverance with
The Blair Witch Project. No doubt some writers considered it but decided that the idea was just too obvious. Perhaps some had a go but couldn't pull it off. Possibly some did it but couldn't find a publisher.
It took Adam Nevill, the 53 year old Brummie novelist (who I am surprised to say is a new one to me) to pull off this
tour de force.
A group of four old college buddies living in London, now well into their thirties, embark on a dream hiking trip in the remote forested part of Sweden. The early difficulties they encounter are as banal as they are predictable: they lose their bearings, get blisters on their feet and all sorts of suppressed tensions between them erupt.
Then, however, it appears that they are being stalked by some lethal unseen Thing which has a penchant for hanging its victims on trees with their innards hanging out. This Thing begins to pick them off one by one and
The Ritual starts to resemble a sort of downmarket
Predator. (Much of the suspense which follows derives from the uncertainty as to what exactly the Thing is...but you'll get no spoilers from me).
Then, just as this lengthy novel seems to be getting a bit routine, there is an unexpected development: Luke, the main protagonist, gets `rescued` by a group of unhinged, if cliched, teenage black metal fanatics, who have their own designs on him....
Nevill is a very literate writer and some of his poetic descriptions of the remorselessly dense forest do drag on a bit (as well as having me need to consult a dictionary on one occasion). There is a hint of Lovecraft in places. However, the main initial draw of the novel is in its human interest aspect. We get the backstories of the four main characters and the realism of this is carried of with conviction. I could strongly relate to Luke - the one of them who never went down the marriage/children/good job route - so it is as well that he becomes the most likely. survivor. The supernatural aspects of the tale I found a little ho-hum.
This novel is grim to a fault - it is full on Horror: a survival thriller-meets-folk horror
par excellence - although I did get a bit weary of Nevill's strenuous efforts to mortify me. There was a bit of black comedy in the sequence where he runs foul of the Black Metalheads (as well as some social commentary on how we maybe should not dismiss the potential dangerousness of such people).
I can tell you nothing of the 2017 adaptation to screen of this novel, other than it must have been difficult to do. Perhaps
@ramonmercado can enlighten us here.