When an action/suspense movie only has foot chases instead of car chases, you know they didn't have much of a budget. This was my first clue that The Ritual Killer was going to be a disappointment. The early scenes in Rome added nothing to the plot. It felt like they shot them for another version, in another language, with other actors in the other roles for a release in the European market, and just worked the footage into this one to pad the running time. The American detective contacts the Italian cop, gets one name, and hangs up. The expectation was that they would team up to catch the killer, but that's the last we see of the Italian. The trope of the vigilante cop who doesn't get along with his captain is so tired that it borders on self-parody. The flashbacks about the detective's daughter's death, too, were overdone and unnecessary. Arguably, the climax of the story doesn't even occur onscreen, and the "surprise" ending feels abrupt and gratuitous.
Review of The Ritual Killer
