Former college friends Luke, Phil, Hutch, and Dom go backpacking in the Swedish wilderness to honor Robert, who was killed in a liquor store robbery. However, after Dom sprains his leg, the four decide to take a shortcut through the woods, and when they discover an elk hanging gutted from a tree, they begin to believe there may be more than bears in this forest…
This film provides examples of:
- Age Without Youth: Moder grants her followers an extended life and immortality, but they still continue to age, with the living mummified bodies kept in the small room Luke stumbles upon apparently being the oldest/original worshippers.
- All There in the Manual:
According to director David Bruckner, the creature is female, and named Moder in the book. But in the film, the pagans dare not speak her name. - Adaptational Abomination: Jottuns are normally not portrayed in the way this film are portrayed (see Animalistic Abomination).
- Animalistic Abomination: The thing that lives in the woods possesses a shape not unlike a gigantic elk. However, she also has what appears to be a headless human torso for a skull with human arms coming from where its legs would be, antlers sprouting form where its arms would be and a vaguely human-like head hidden in the shadows within a shroud where the torso's crotch is. When she rises on her hind legs, she also reveals a second pair of human-like hands near her hips. She can also make people hallucinate just by being in the area.
- Armor-Piercing Response: During Luke and Dom's heated exchange about halfway through the film, Luke says to Dom that the group "wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you." Dom responds with "no, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you!" implying that Luke's failure to act in the liquor store resulted in Rob's death. The argument turns physical soon after that line.
- Asshole Victim: It's hard to feel any sympathy for the villagers as they get slaughtered by Moder, given that they've been sacrificing people to it in exchange for immortality, and it's implied that they've been doing this for years.
- Dom. While
some of his behavior might be justified, he is extremely antagonistic through the whole movie, being the one to vocally blame Luke for not being able to prevent Rob's death (even though there was nothing he could realistically do besides getting killed himself), and ignoring the fact that if he, Phil and Hutch had accompanied Rob like Luke did they could have helped. He also spends his time complaining about the whole trip (long before getting injured) and talking about how he wanted to go to Vegas and the woman he could find there, despite being married. After the first day through the wood turns nightmarish, he refuses to cooperate with the others or even discuss, sprinting through the first path he sees, which ends up leading them to the village and to their doom for good.
- Dom. While
- Bald of Evil: One of the cultists is completely bald.
- Bears Are Bad News: When the group comes across an elk impaled on a tree, they speculate that a bear did it, but one of them points out that bears don't do that sort of thing.
- Bad Boss: Even Moder’s own followers aren’t safe from her wrath when they fail to protect the mummified bodies of the older followers.
- Big Bad: Moder, the creature the murder cult worships.
- Bilingual Bonus: The creature's name Moder means "mother" in several Scandanavian languages. Interestingly, the spelling would indicate the modern pronunciation, despite the creature being described as ancient. This might be because the Old Norse pronunciation, móðir, is closer to the English "mother".
- Bittersweet Ending: Luke manages to get out of the forest alive and burns down the village sacrificing people to Moder for good measure, and it's implied that he makes peace with the guilt he feels over Robert's death. However, he's the only one who made it out alive due to Phil, Hutch and Dom, and Moder is also still very much alive in the forest. Though given she seems trapped in the woods and Luke despite being wounded and alone was able to injure her with a mundane weapon, if the authorities investigate the circumstances the woods and the monster could soon be destroyed.
- Black Speech: Appropriate for the bastard daughter of an Elder God.
- Caught Up in a Robbery: The film opens with Robert and Luke getting caught up in a robbery at an off-licence (liquor store) after leaving their friends at the pub. Luke hides, while Robert is caught and the robbers attempt to take his wedding ring, killing him when he refuses to hand it over. This is also the Inciting Incident for the group's trip to Sweden.
- Dead Guy on Display: Moder’s victims have been impaled on tree branches, and the villagers don't take their sacrifices down, leaving them hanging from the branches (presumably out of fear of angering the creature).
- Don't Go in the Woods: The whole premise of the film. It may seem like an ordinary forest, but the creature that lives within it is anything but normal.
- Downer Beginning: Robert is killed within the first few minutes, which is what kicks off the plot of the film.
- Due to the Dead: The lads choose to go to Sweden specifically it's because what their dead friend wanted to do, and they build a small memorial to him on top of a mountain.
- Despite the stress, horror, and exhaustion of the situation, the remaining friends do the best they can by Hutch after discovering his mutilated body, taking him down from the trees and covering him in branches.
- Dwindling Party: One by one, each member of the group dies, until Luke is left as the sole survivor.
- Eldritch Abomination: Moder is physically terrifying and is capable of making people relive their worst memories and her motives are never made clear. To truly emphasize her otherworldliness, it is said that the monster is the child of Loki, the Norse trickster god.
- Event Title: Towards the end of the movie, it becomes clear that the creature that has been hunting the group was chasing them to a camp site where its worshippers live. There, the cultists sacrifice Dom and offer Luke the chance to join them by enacting a ritual.
- Eye Scream: Moder plucks out the eyes of one of the villagers, though whether that's for allowing the mummified worshipers to burn or for daring to look upon Moder is unclear.
- Face Death with Dignity: Subverted. Dom takes on a brave face after the villagers torture him and he becomes aware he will not survive. Only then to still scream when facing Moder, though her first appearing in the form of his wife Gayle didn't help his fortitude.
- Fatal Forced March: Despite being completely lost, constantly rained on, travelling across increasingly uneven terrain and being hunted down by an unseen threat, the four friends have no choice but to keep hobbling onwards through the forest with dwindling supplies and plummeting morale.
- Final Boy: Luke is the only one of his group to survive the film. Everyone else is killed and hung up by Moder.
- Fingore: Luke is forced to break his left thumb in order to escape his restraints.
- Folk Horror: A group of British friends on vacation in Northern Sweden run afoul of a pagan cult that worships a monster from Norse mythology.
- Foreshadowing:
- It's mentioned early on that the group has no idea of the locals' religious practices, and they might very well be pagan. It later turns out that an entire village worships the monster, which is a bastard child of Loki, and they sacrifice people to her.
- The impaled elk in the tree that the group runs into soon after entering the woods is the first victim of Moder we see, and the creature herself resembles an elk in some ways.
- Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Moder spends most of her time walking on all fours like an animal; however, near the end, she stands bipedally in a distinctly human fashion.
- Genre Savvy: Upon the group first entering the cabin, Phil says, "This is definitely the house we get murdered in."
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Strongly implied with Moder’s motivations. After she kills her living congregation for failing to protect the mummified worshipers, she deliberately misses several chances to kill Luke, instead trying to intimidate him into prostrating himself to her glory.
- Hallucinations: Luke hallucinates seeing the place where Robert died, as well as the people there. This is indicated to be a sign of Moder’s presence.
- He Was Right There All Along: One shot holds on the group as they trek up a hill. Moder blends in with the trees so well that you only notice her once she steps out of view, offering only a brief glimpse of...something. The fact that it happens in broad daylight makes it even worse.
- Hell Is That Noise: The unearthly sounds Luke hears in the woods before entering the cabin. They were made by Moder.
- Immortality Immorality: The villagers sacrifice people to Moder in exchange for immortality.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Moder’s primary method of killing her victims is to impale them onto tree branches.
- Impersonation-Exclusive Character: Gayle, Dom's wife, only appears briefly toward the end of the film in Dom's vision induced by Moder.
- It Can Think: Moder is clearly intelligent, as she uses hallucinations to disorient and weaken her prey.
- Join or Die: After Dom is killed, the villagers tell Luke that he will begin a ritual where he must join them by kneeling before Moder, or else be sacrificed to her.
- Karma Houdini: It's never indicated that the robbers who murder Robert in the opening sequence receive any kind of comeuppance.
- Kill It with Fire: Luke burns down a room containing moving mummified corpses, killing the oldest villagers.
- Kneel Before Zod: Moder demands that her followers kneel before her.
- Lovecraft Lite: Ostensibly, Word of God says that Moder was inspired by Yhoundeh, The Elk Goddess, purported wife of Nylarthotep; Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the woods ; or some combination of the two.
- Master of Illusion: Moder is this, being able to induce hallucinations of anything that people want (or don't want) to see, which lends some credence to the claim that she really is a child of Loki.
- Mr. Exposition: The young female villager who tends to Luke is the only person in the village who speaks English and so explains some of Moder’s backstory to him.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Played with. Moder can be harmed, as seen when Luke attacks her with an axe at the end of the movie, although the wound doesn't slow her down too much. She also shrugged off a shot from a hunting rifle.
- Non Sequitur Environment: The ominous-but-logical hiking trip through the forest suddenly takes a turn for Surreal Horror when Luke attempts to leave the cabin they were staying at - only to find himself back in the liquor store where he witnessed his friend being murdered. These visions and nightmares continue over the course of the film, sometimes with the terrain slowly dissolving from trees to shelves until the store has partially replaced the forest, other occasions featuring random elements of the store appearing suddenly out of nowhere
- Nothing Is Scarier: Very little of Moder is shown through the movie, the viewer can only get very small glimpses of something up until the last half an hour or so of the movie, in which she comes in full display.
- Only Sane Man: Luke, who is strongly against the shortcut. He's also the only member of the group to survive and escape the woods.
- Inverted later on, when everyone but Dom is against taking the path through the woods, suggesting instead to just go back the way they came and exit the creepy forest. Sadly, Dom forces their hand on the matter.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: It doesn't get much weirder than the body of a massive stag but with a headless human torso for a head, with antlers for hands, arms for legs, and a black void with glowing eyes at crotch height.
- Recycled In Space: The Descent recycled in a Swedish forest. A single woman/man (Sarah vs Luke) goes through an extremely traumatic experience of seeing someone die in front of them (Sarah's family/Robert). Their same-gender group of friends (women in The Descent, men in The Ritual) go on an adventure trip abroad (the USA vs Sweden, and spelunking vs hiking) to recover. They get lost due to the rash decision of a single member (Hutch vs Juno) and discover something horrific and murderous in the woods.
- Religion of Evil: The villagers worship Moder, said to be a child of the Norse god Loki. Said worship involves sacrificing innocent people to the monster in exchange for immortality. Sounds like a fairly evil faith, no?
- Scenery Porn: The film has quite a few gorgeous shots of the Scandinavian landscape. (It was actually filmed in Romania.)
- Shortcuts Make Long Delays: After Dom twists his knee, Hutch suggests leaving the trail and cutting through the woods to get to the lodge in half the time (8 hours as opposed to 16). Luke protests, but is overridden by the others. This decision kicks off the entire film, which spans for over two days.Dom: If a shortcut was actually a shortcut, it would be called a route.
- Sinister Deer Skull: Moder is an Animalistic Abomination treated as a Physical God by her cultists. She serves as the main antagonist and has a distorted deer skull head with various other parts including legs and bird talons hanging off of it.
- Survivor's Guilt: Once Moder starts imparting nightmares and visions onto the group, Luke's guilt over somehow not stopping the robbery that Robert died in comes to the surface, even though all he was armed with was a bottle of vodka versus a violent man's extremely sharp machete. Luke may also be feeling this by the end as he survived while his other friends did not.
- You No Take Candle: The one cultist that speaks English talks like this.
