The Ritual

Four British guys take a trip to walk a trail in Sweden. One injures himself and pitches a big baby fit about it, so they try a shortcut through the woods. Where they first find an elk impaled in a tree, and then a creepy cabin. In the cabin, they all experience awful nightmares and are badly shaken by the morning. They realize they're being followed and grow increasingly paranoid and concerned, and are eventually captured by a Swedish variety of crazy, devil-worshipping hillbillies. Well, close enough.

The main hook is that they went on the trip because it was the idea of a fifth friend of theirs, who was killed by some junkies robbing a liquor stores. One of them, Luke (Rafe Spall), was in the store, and did nothing to help his friend. Not even cradle his dead body mournfully. So there's a lot of guilt running through this. The haphazard nature of the thinking behind the trip, might also explain why some of them aren't really in condition for this, and they clearly have no idea what the hell they're doing once they get in the woods. It also plays into how quickly they start fighting among each other. The going gets tough, the tough start shit-talking each other.

It's a credit to the film I couldn't tell which way Luke was going to go right up to the end. It's one thing to say you're going to go down fighting, and then you're about to be impaled slowly on a tree branch. And you never know with horror flicks, whether it's going to be mildly upbeat, or if everyone is doomed.