20 Recent Horror Movies That Made ONE Big Mistake

While the nearly non-existent marketing and limited theatrical rollout didn't suggest that XYZ Films had much hope for their exorcism movie The Ritual, in the very least it'd benefit from the novelty factor of seeing Al Pacino hamming it up for the cheap seats as a German-American priest, right?

As fun as that might sound, The Ritual's fatal mistake isn't its generic script or flat direction, but the puzzling decision to let Pacino give a totally straight-faced, sober-minded, even low-energy performance that thoroughly squanders the entire point of putting him in a schlocky exorcism film in the first place.

Now in fairness, who is going to tell an 80-something Al Pacino how to play a character? 

Perhaps it was his choice to go the subdued route, but considering that a classically over-the-top Al Pacino performance would've made all the difference here, it's maddening that he takes the material so dead-seriously.