Al Pacino’s New Horror Scores His Career-Worst on Rotten Tomatoes
The Godfather’s actor has just got his first worst-ever streak on Rotten Tomatoes, but still got some praise for a failed new movie. Here’s what critics and viewers say about Al Pacino’s role and the film as a whole.
For decades, it’s been believed that Al Pacino’s acting experience just can’t get him a bad movie; turns out, he isn’t safe from failures either.
Coming off the success of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Martin Scorsese’s Irishman, Al Pacino has recently starred in quite a few luckless movies, but nothing has so far beaten the actor’s new horror movie The Ritual, released just a couple of days ago.
Also starring Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens and Twilight’s Ashley Greene, The Ritual kicked it off with a shocking Rotten Tomatoes score that has also become the first major failure in Al Pacino’s entire career.
‘The Ritual’ Initially Had 0% RT Score
- On Rotten Tomatoes, The Ritual holds a critical score of 8%
- On IMDb, the movie is rated 4.7/10
Released in theatres across the world on June 6, the movie received extremely negative reviews from critics who, apparently, had pretty much nothing good to say while attributing it a shocking 0% score.
Things got a bit better afterwards, with The Ritual eventually getting a bit higher to 8%, but still remaining an obvious critical flop.
Based on real events, the movie stars Al Pacino and Dan Stevens as priests Theophilus Riesinger and Joseph Steiger who, while trying to fight their own inner demons and issues with each other, team up to save allegedly possessed young woman Emma Schmidt, carrying out a series of dangerous exorcisms.
What Critics and Viewers Say About ‘The Ritual’
So far, movie critics have highlighted many reasons why The Ritual was never meant to be a good horror film anyway, but they’re still unanimous while pointing out that the movie in fact has nothing new to say about the matter.
“Stop me if you’ve heard this one before... No, I mean it, stop me,” The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck wrote while New York Times’ Glenn Kenny wrote “Just watch “The Exorcist” again”.
“There is much faith testing and holy water slinging, but not a single jumpscare. Still, Pacino is oddly compelling to watch”, AARP Movies for Grownups’ Thelma Adams revealed.
Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro noted that The Ritual “fails to evoke any emotion as it sleepwalks through a tired recreation of an exorcism movie’s third act, committing the ultimate cardinal sin in cinema: it’s boring”.
The audiences, however, still got divided.
“The Ritual is a must-see for those interested in learning how an exorcism is performed in real life. Director David Midell took great care to document all the files and reports on the Emma Schmidt case. The result is a highly interesting and well-researched film that reflects the controversy surrounding exorcism between skeptics and those with a religious stance”, user Maria Luisa A wrote on Rotten Tomatoes’ website.
“A truly baffling movie experience. It is rare that a film only 90 minutes long manages to feel twice as long as it deserves to be. The stylistic choice of how it is shot comes across as extremely amateurish and actually left me feeling nauseous at points”, Clay C retorted.
The Ritual is currently playing in theatres worldwide.
