The Ritual

The Ritual was adapted into a film by Imaginarium in 2017. Writer Joe Barton transformed Adam Nevill’s novel into a screenplay. The film stars Rafe Spall, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughtton, and Arsher Ali as Luke, Hutch, Dom, and Phil, respectively. It also adds a fifth friend, Robert, who is killed at the beginning of the film by people holding up a liquor store. In the book, the impetus for camping in the woods is Luke’s limited finances; in the film, the men travel to the woods to honor their deceased friend’s final wish to go there. They scatter Robert’s ashes along the trail before heading into the virgin forest.

Luke is far more violent and is more severely injured in the novel. In the film, he is unable to confront the men who kill his friend Robert. Dom and the others resent Luke for not intervening in the liquor store, and the liquor store imagery bleeds into the forest, highlighting how both the civilized and uncivilized world are violent. In the novel, Luke punches someone who pushes past him on a train in London and alludes to other violent outbursts that occur previous to the vacation in the forest.