One of the more common story setups is the “Group of People Gets Lost In the Woods” scenario, and it’s not surprising why. It fits into a clear genre (Horror), it’s marketable (all horror is), it’s cheap to shoot (all you need is actors and a camera), and there’s something universally scary about getting lost that all audiences can relate to.
The problem is that nearly every one of these scripts is bad. It’s not surprising why. The Lost in a Forest setup is what I call a “45 page idea.” Since there’s only so much you can do walking through a forest (How many times can two characters argue about what to do next?), you inevitably run out of scenes by page 45. That’s the trap of this sub-genre. It looks so easy but it’s deceptively hard to pull off.
The Ritual is one of the few movies to do it. The reason for that you’ll hear from most outlets is the creature design. Indeed, the creature is awesome, unlike anything you’ve seen before. I love how they pull a Jaws, as well, holding it off until the very end of the movie. If you’re a creature geek, you’ll love The Ritual. But that’s not why this movie is so great. It’s great because of a single scene.
For those who don’t have access to Netflix, The Ritual follows four middle-aged friends who hike the Swedish mountains in honor of their friend who was killed in a violent convenience store attack during a robbery. When one of the friends gets injured on the trail, they try to take a short cut through the forest. And that’s where the trouble begins.
Simple premise, right? So why was this version of “Group Gets Lost in a Forest” so much better than the hundreds of others that are so achingly boring?
The second scene of the movie.
Our five friends are at a bar, deciding what their next vacation spot is going to be. There’s Luke, our introspective hero, Hutch, the alpha male of the group, Dom, the chubby dude who always complains, Phil, the anxious one, and Robert, the fun-loving best friend to them all.
After the bar, Luke and Robert head inside a convenience store to grab some beer for the after party while the others wait outside. As they joke around, they glance over to see that the checkout girl is on the floor, bleeding. We see the back door open and two thugs emerge. Robert, who’s closest to them, is frozen, while Luke, due to the angle at which he’s standing, can’t be seen, so he quickly hides at the back of the aisle.
What happens next is what you expect. The thugs demand money and jewelry from Robert, who obliges until he gets to his wedding ring, which he refuses to part with. All this time, Luke is sitting there. These men don’t have guns. He can go help his friend. But he chooses to stay there. The situation escalates and the thugs bash Robert over the head with a bar, killing him.
It’s from there that we cut to the mountain, six months later. Like I said, Dom injures his leg, forcing the group into the forest in pursuit of a short cut, where they start seeing markings on the trees as well as scattered cabins that seem to have been inhabited by people who worship a creature. Before long, they start hearing the creature stalking them. And it picks them off one by one.
Why was this convenience store scene so important?
To understand that, you have to understand what this movie looks like WITHOUT THE SCENE. And I say that because I’ve read TONS of scripts with this setup that didn’t have this scene or a scene like it. And they almost always sucked. Instead of witnessing the traumatic event ourselves, we hear it alluded to in retrospect, we see it in the characters’ eyes, and occasionally hear it in their monologues. Every once in awhile, the writing is so good and the actors’ performances so strong that they take us back to these traumatic moments without having to see them. But usually, since we didn’t see it with our own eyes, we feel nothing for that person or how it’s affected our characters.
What’s that old saying? A picture is worth a thousand words? This may be the world’s best example of that.
The scene in the convenience store is harrowing. It’s shot in a gritty realistic style to ensure it stays with us. That can’t be discounted. But even if we only focus on the script, it’s a great choice because the scene informs EVERYTHING that happens throughout the rest of the film.
For starters, our main character’s flaw is established. He’s a coward. We see him battling this in every single scene. He hates himself. He can’t live that day down. He knows that the reason they’re even in this mess to begin with is because he was too afraid to save his friend. Having a main character not just going through an inner conflict throughout the movie, but one that actually feels authentic and real, turns a basic horror premise into something much deeper.
Second, it affects all the relationships in the movie. Luke’s struggle isn’t just that he was cowardly and didn’t save his friend. It’s that his friends don’t know the truth. All they know is that he was lucky to escape. This means that Luke is also battling the fact that he’s living a lie. That his own friends don’t know he’s responsible for the death of their friend. This informs almost every conversation in the movie. You can see the guilt in his eyes, the regret, the anger at keeping his secret. When you hear criticisms about your dialogue that, ‘there’s no subtext,’ this is one way to create subtext. No conversation here is solely about what’s happening on the surface. There’s always another audio track playing underneath.
But where things get really fun is the creature. Clearly, the creature is used as a symbol of fear. We’re not talking about Pumpkinhead or Freddy here, empty vessels designed for cheap thrills that have no connection to the people they’re stalking. We know that if Luke can defeat this monster, he’ll finally overcome his flaw – his cowardice. That raises the personal stakes of the hero and makes us way more invested than we’d usually be. We want to see Luke stand up to this thing and redeem himself!
Finally, that scene allows us to create scares that are ORGANIC to the story. Pay attention because this is important, guys. What’s the worst kind of scare? An empty jump scare, right? A guy gets out of his tent at night, goes to take a leak, hears something. Then something jumps out of nowhere and attacks him – FLASH – he’s back in his tent. It was just a nightmare! Zoinks!
By setting your movie up with a scene this powerful, you can give us scares that are connected to the story. Some of my favorite scenes were Luke waking up at night, leaving his tent, only to find himself in a hybrid convenience-store-forest setting. There Robert was again, before the thugs kill him. Luke has a chance to redeem himself. But once again, his best friend is slaughtered and – FLASH – he’s right back in the tent. It was a nightmare. You tell me which one of those scares is more effective.
One scene – ONE SCENE – set this all up.
The lesson today isn’t that you should write a horror movie where someone gets killed in the beginning. That’s not what I’m saying. The lesson is that when you have a simple plot such as people getting lost in a forest, you should be utilizing big moments in your first act that affect your main character and as many supporting characters as possible. This will allow there to be something going on beneath the surface throughout every moment of your movie. That will both take the pressure off your plot and give you more places to go, since you’ll be exploring what’s going on INSIDE of your characters as well as outside.
