The Red Book Ritual is one of the strangest horror movies of the year. The premise sounds simple enough. Three friends play a game that is a mixture of using a ouija board and telling scary stories around the campfire. It is an anthology with a set up similar to The 100 Candles Game. Little do they know, each story they tell puts their lives at greater risk.
The film does an excellent job of building tension and can be genuinely scary at times. There are many moments that do a great job of dragging things out to an unbearable level. Audiences will often find themselves afraid of what is going to happen next. Unfortunately, much of this is created since things can end at any moment, even if the story feels unfinished.
The first installment in the anthology sets expectations for what is to come. The actual tale is creepy, if nothing special. In ‘Stray’, a man comes back from an unspecified war to a wife that is uncommunicative and seems to have taken a stand against wearing any clothes. There is some back and forth involving a cat that will not die and a wife who makes strange noises before things just end.
The Red Book Ritual continues on like this for its entire run time. Of the five stories, the first three just fade to black. The same thing happens with the wraparound. Not helping matters is the lack of connection between any of the stories. There is the game being played in the actual movie, but even this is not consistent. The first tale is just a random story told to scare one of the friends while the second one just starts.
What makes this especially frustrating is that the movie does so many things well. It takes a while to get things going, but there are some great jump scares. ‘Little One’ has a tremendous build that ends up being completely wasted. ‘Nose Nose Nose Eyes!’ has an interesting premise that goes nowhere while ‘Release’ does nothing with the most intriguing part of its story.
Everything adds up to a film that is both unintentionally funny and truly frightening. Aside from ‘Nose Nose Nose Eyes!’ which is horrible, the rest of The Red Book Ritual will keep audiences watching. The problem is, that even though there are some moments that will bring the scares, there are just as many that will make them laugh.
The Red Book Ritual is available on demand September 13
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