10 Horror Movie Creature Features That Broke All The Rules
3. The Ritual
Most films in the folk horror sub genre don't bother trying to include an actual monster in their action. Instead, the likes of The Wicker Man and Midsommar opt to make the over-zealous cultists that their stories centre around the antagonists.
Shout out to the Stephen King adaptation Children of the Corn for attempting to do both at once and featuring a monster as well as its young villains. It failed disastrously and became laughable, but props for trying nonetheless.
However, 2017's The Ritual, directed by The Signal helmer David Bruckner, combined elements of the folk horror sub genre with a new (and truly surreal) monster of its own in order to reignite interest in both folk horror and the creature feature sub genre at once.
Unwinding at a slow pace and grounding its small cast of lost friends in recognisable reality, this one succeeds thanks to its stunning, strange creature design and the gradual build up to its eventual full-scale reveal.