‘The Ritual’ seeks to portray exorcism respectfully

One thing seems certain about the exorcism-themed movie “The Ritual” (XYZ); it is not intended as the first installment in a franchise. “It really was a one-off,” director David Midell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Enrico Natale, tells OSV News.

The film dramatizes perhaps the best-known case of alleged possession in U.S. history. By 1928, psychiatric remedies for the long-term mental anguish endured by Emma Schmidt — who may or may not have been a Wisconsin native, and who was later referred to by the pseudonym Anna Ecklund — had been exhausted, and an exorcism was authorized as a last resort.

The subsequent events, which unfolded at St. Joseph’s parish in Earling, Iowa, were considered newsworthy enough that the cleric who conducted the rite, German-born Capuchin priest Father Theo