When news of The Ritual, a possession thriller from The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain director David Midell, was announced last year, my ears perked up hearing that Al Pacino and Dan Stevens would be sharing the horror movie spotlight. Stevens has been a genre film favorite, taking on an array of roles just last year, including Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Abigail, and Cuckoo. Though Stevens has embraced the horror genre, his co-star Pacino has largely stayed away. Sure, one can argue Cruising’s thriller aspects border on horror-esque, and the same can be said about Nolan’s Insomnia, or the chainsaw moment in Scarface. However, the only time Pacino embodied a horror role prior to The Ritual, he went all the way – playing a devil of a lawyer who shared the same name as the writer of Paradise Lost in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate.

Still, The Devil’s Advocate is really only one-quarter of a horror picture, with the majority being a courtroom drama. This makes Pacino a huge draw in his role as old-world priest Father Theophilus Riesinger, and I’m sure someone will eventually meme both roles into some humorous online video of Pacino exorcising himself. Regardless, The Ritual marks the legendary actor’s first wholly encompassing horror role, and I didn’t want to miss that for the world.

The Ritual’s premise has historical precedent, harkening back to the Convent of the Franciscan Sisters in Iowa during the fall of 1928 and the most publicized case of exorcism ever documented in America. When the film begins, the exorcism is already in progress. A flustered Stevens is giving his addled best, embodying the part of Father Joseph Steiger with his back physically against the brick wall outside of where the exorcism is taking place, catching his breath as things intensify inside. Returning from his shaky nerves, he approaches the door to the afflicted woman’s room, only to see the possessed woman dive across the threshold, providing audiences a quick jumpscare before resetting to before the event.

Though the viewer has no idea what’s transpiring, Midell captivates with his shaky hand-held camera style and fast zooms while composers Jason Lazarus and Joseph Trapanese fuel their score with shrill strings and loud noises. As Father Steiger attempts to re-enter the exorcism, the audience can expect the air to be pulled from their lungs just as it is from his. The atmosphere is undeniably thick, crafting effortless tension in this opening two-minute sequence before ebbing into exposition with the audience on the edge of their seat.

Transitioning into character building and the film’s overarching story elements, we’re taken back a month earlier, just as Father Riesinger is about to arrive with Emma Schmidt (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s Abigail Cowen), the teenager whom Riesinger is certain is possessed. In the lead up to that news, we follow Father Steiger, who seems to flirt a little with Sister Rose (Twilight’s Ashley Greene) before being informed by Bishop Edwards (The Last Exorcist’s Patrick Fabian) of Riesinger’s arrival. The Bishop informs Steiger of Emma’s psychiatric history in a very “you want me to debunk The X-Files?” dialogue with Steiger, asking him to keep Riesinger in line with the clearly troubled woman, a sentiment echoed by the church’s Mother Superior (The Middle’s Patricia Heaton).

What evolves from all this exposition is a push and pull of faith through Steiger’s daily reckoning with the ongoing exorcism. Every night, Steiger, Riesinger, Sister Rose, and other sisters of the convent stand over the bed of Emma Schmidt while the exorcism is performed, and every day they’re left to wallow in the aftermath. While Father Riesinger never questions Emma’s possession, Steiger has his doubts about what he’s witnessing. The Ritual then obfuscates the line between what is supernatural possession and what is psychological warfare.

Pacino and Stevens are electric on-screen together. Pacino really commits himself to the role, commanding the character he’s built by applying mannerisms with ease. Whenever Pacino isn’t around, the audience is waiting for him to come back, also because most of his scenes have the exorcism in it. I have seen from other reviewers that they think Pacino is “phoning it in” and, in a couple of scenes, you can hear him getting tired of the accent, but if this is Pacino “phoning it in,” he’s half-assing it at a level greater than most performers.

Stevens, on the other hand, fits graciously into Pacino’s scenes, but I had trouble taking him seriously in other scenes. When he’s alone with Greene in a back-and-forth on a park bench outside of the convent, Steiger is apologizing for a violent accident that had befallen Sister Rose after he refused Father Riesinger’s request to restrain Emma during the exorcism. The scene features both characters speaking almost puritanically, perhaps to avoid discussing their fondness for each other, but it feels disingenuous, with dialogue choices and an awkward length that is as inquisitively noticeable to the actors as it is to the audience.

In fact, this moment in The Ritual marked the point where the movie began to lose its momentum. While it is realistic to expect that an exorcism wouldn’t take place in a single night, the constant shift between dramatic days and traumatic nights creates a challenging balancing act as the film tries to neatly differentiate each day in the documented twenty-three-day battle against evil. As the movie approaches its climax, it struggles to blend the initially distinct themes of light versus dark and psychology versus possession into the muddled gray area it sets out for the audience to decipher.

Additionally, as the possession worsens, Emma does and says things that she has no Earthly prowess for, deepening the crisis of faith in Steiger’s mind. However, I believe the production uses too heavy a hand. The Ritual’s ambiguous nature is what gives the overarching plot its fuel, but what should be a recollection of what is possible against blindly believing out of fear instead becomes an overtly one-sided affair, as reasons for Emma’s knowledge and capabilities are never fully explained or reasoned out. Surely, Midell is attempting to strike that ambivalent chord, but the result feels a bit one-sided, occasionally offering plot points that aren’t as explored as they could be, too. We can chalk it up to demon conjecture, I guess. Demons are known to lie after all.

Beyond all of that, the biggest sin The Ritual commits is that it just gets kind of dull extremely fast. The film starts with a lot of energy. Charging into the exorcism, then bogging itself down in character crises and dispersing the horror-addled portions unsatisfyingly. Plus, the camera style, which intensifies many of the exorcism scenes, becomes frustrating to watch during the calm, dramatic portions where people sit and speak. And, on top of that, it isn’t like audiences haven’t seen this kind of film before. I’m sure William Peter Blatty used much of the Emma Schmidt (aka Anna Ecklund) case while crafting The Exorcist (it says as much on the poster), with William Friedkin’s movie remaining the gold standard of the subgenre.