Mickey Keating has made five horror movies in as many years and while none of them really amount to much beyond a respectable knowledge of genre history, language and tradition individually, as a whole they suggest a young, hungry filmmaker determined to make his own mark in a very cluttered landscape.

Ritual is Keating’s first movie and, unsurprisingly, his crudest. Still, there’s a playfulness with the narrative and the tired horror tropes that is enough to keep you invested. I have no doubt Keating will eventually make a movie that is genuinely good and it will be because of these early films, produced in an apparent creative hurry, that he will learn from his mistakes and ultimately figure out his own voice and strengths.