The Ritual

The Ritual (2011) is a horror novel by Adam Nevill. The book follows four friends—Luke, Hutch, Dom, and Phil—as they embark on a hiking trip through the remote forests of northern Sweden. When injuries force them off the main trail, they become lost in an ancient woodland, where they encounter unsettling signs of ritualistic activity and a lurking supernatural presence. As tensions rise and the group is hunted by an unseen force, survival becomes a desperate struggle against both external threats and internal conflicts. The novel explores the themes of The Complicated Nature of Anger, Masculinity In and Out of Civilization, and The Clash Between Modernity and Ancient Beliefs.

The Ritual, and three other books by Nevill, won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel. In 2017, The Ritual was adapted into a film directed by David Bruckner and starring Rafe Spall. 

This guide uses the 2012 St. Martin’s Press paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic murders, physical abuse, animal cruelty and death, suicidal ideation, and imprisonment.

Language note: This guide quotes from the text when using the terms “insane” and “disfigured,” which stigmatize physical disability and mental health conditions.

Plot Summary

Four friends, Hutch, Phil, Dom, and Luke, take a vacation to the Scandinavian wilderness. After Dom injures his knee and Phil gets severe blisters from his new shoes, Hutch doesn’t think the two men can complete their planned hike along established trails. As the leader of the group, Hutch suggests that they take a shortcut through the virgin forest to reach civilization in Skaite, Sweden.

Off the trails, the men encounter an animal that has been mutilated and suspended high in a tree. They quickly run away after realizing it is a fresh kill. After traveling many miles in heavy rain, the men find a deserted black house. They decide to stay in it to get dry and warm. Luke hears a loud sound in the woods and doesn’t want to go in the house. It contains many skulls, crosses, and runes. In the attic, there is a stuffed goat with human arms attached.

All the men have violent nightmares in the house. Luke wakes up first and discovers that Hutch has sleepwalked into the attic and knelt in front of the stuffed goat in his underwear. Once Hutch is awake, he and Luke discover Dom is kneeling outside in his underwear. Phil is naked in the pantry. They are all covered in their own urine.

When they leave the house, Luke wants to retrace their steps back to the trail, but the others don’t want to travel past the mutilated animal corpse again. Dom and Luke get into an argument about Luke being too broke to afford a vacation in civilization because he is a bachelor working at a CD store, and Luke physically assaults Dom. Hutch pulls Luke aside and explains that Dom and Phil are bankrupt and getting divorced; their lives aren’t as good as they seem.

The group discovers more abandoned houses, a church, and a cemetery. Hutch falls through the floor of the church and discovers a mass grave containing animal and human bones. Phil is upset by the runes on the standing stones around the cemetery. There are no crosses in the church or cemetery.

The men continue to travel in the wrong direction by pushing through the clearest parts of the forest, and have to camp outside that night. While they are sleeping, a creature takes Hutch from the tent he shares with Dom. The other men look for Hutch, but can’t find him. They gather the supplies he left behind and Luke leads the group toward a hill where he can get the lay of the land. Along the way, they see Hutch’s mutilated corpse crucified in a tree. On the hill, Luke climbs a tree and sees how to correct their path to get back to civilization.

Meanwhile, Phil is gathering wood for a fire, and the creature takes him. Luke scurries down the tree and tries to attack the creature. It gives him a serious head injury. Dom and Luke struggle to stay awake that night, sitting back-to-back, with knives and torches in their hands. When it gets light, the two men continue traveling, having to crawl at times and drink water off of leaves because their supplies have run out. They pass by the mutilated corpse of Phil strung up in a tree and hug.

As they continue walking, Luke struggles to turn his head, due to it being injured, to look at Dom behind him. Later that day, Luke hears Dom shout, but continues moving forward. This is because Luke senses Dom is behind him, but stinks more than before. When Luke finally turns around, he realizes Dom is gone; he was smelling the creature. Luke walks and crawls until he can’t move, and collapses on the ground.

Members of a Norwegian black metal band, Fenris and Loki, as well as Loki’s girlfriend Surtr, imprison Luke in a house that belongs to an unnamed old woman. The old woman feeds Luke and gives him water, but no one gives him medical attention, cleans him, or goes for help. The men talk about a ritual to summon the creature and gain the interest of the god Odin. Luke doesn’t want to be a sacrifice, and tries to escape by hitting Fenris in the head with the water jug.

However, the others catch and assault Luke. When they return him to his locked room, they bind his feet and hands. In the dirty coffin-like bed he is kept in, Luke continues to have nightmares about being a sacrifice and about the little people in the woods. Loki, Fenris, and the old woman take Luke to the attic, where there are moving, but desiccated, animal-human hybrids that resemble the little people in Luke’s dream. The creature suspends Dom’s mutilated corpse in trees near the house.

The old woman dresses Luke in a blood-stained gown and crown of dead flowers. Loki and Fenris raise an inverted cross. When they take him outside, Luke tries to escape again, past a truck, but the teens catch Luke, assault him, and bind him to the cross. The old woman refuses to take part in the ritual, and the creature does not appear. Luke passes out, and when he wakes up, he is unbound, lying next to his knife, and his room is unlocked.

Luke surprises Fenris, who is sleeping in a box-bed in the kitchen, and stabs him in the neck. Fenris stumbles outside. Luke finds a gun, struggling to operate it, but eventually shoots Loki, Fenris, and the old woman. Surtr runs off into the woods. Luke finds the keys to the truck in Loki’s jacket.

When Luke drives off, the creature puts Surtr’s mutilated body in the truck bed. Luke continues driving, intermittently stalling the truck. Eventually, the goat/human creature rams through the front windshield, pinning Luke with its giant horns. Luke stabs the creature in the head and escapes when it withdraws from the wrecked truck. Luke walks and crawls until he reaches the edge of the forest. He realizes that simply living, not a career or family, is the only thing that matters.