An exorcism horror picture starring Dan Stevens and Al Pacino is an easy sell for cinephiles, even if it only delivers on the lowest common denominator. Frankly, that’s what we get with The Ritual, a true-story-inspired possession flick that sticks to the genre’s formula pretty closely, failing to elicit much in the way of scares or sympathy.

The Ritual details sinister real events that happened in Iowa in 1928, where two priests participate in a marathon exorcism to rescue an afflicted woman, all the while dealing with their own pasts and crisis of faith. The film is (self-proclaimedly) based on the “most thoroughly documented exorcism in American history,” so you would be forgiven for feeling that this is overly familiar.

One of the more unique things about The Ritual — of which there are admittedly few — is director David Midell’s choice to shoot the film in an almost documentary-like format. This does make the film feel like one of the more grounded exorcist movies this side of… well… The Exorcist. That being said, it also leads to some weird quirks. For one, the documentary style is ostensibly modern, but the story is set in 1928, which creates an off-putting disconnect. There are also some strange choices, like panning to Dan Stevens’s character for reactions as if he were Jim in The Office.

The groundedness of The Ritual also comes at the expense of it ever feeling particularly scary. Which, for a film that purportedly wants the audience to feel like they are “in the trenches” with these priests, you’d expect this to be a lot more intense and unsettling than it is. But what we have is a horror film that’s so obsessed with being “real” that it forgets to ever be scary.

This approach might be more effective if the character development were richer, but it’s really hard to get invested in this story. Credit where it’s due, The Ritual is based on a true story that predated even The Exorcist, so it’s hard to call it derivative. But since the focus of the film is on the rites of the exorcism themselves, there’s very little room for us to have backstory or any sort of meaningful connection to the woman whose soul we’re supposed to care about being saved.

As the audience’s surrogate, Dan Stevens is fine. It’s a little disappointing to see him do something so tame and normal considering the genuinely unhinged work he’s been doing in genre movies like Cuckoo, Abigail, and Godzilla x Kong as of late, but frankly, Stevens could be compelling reading the phone book, and reading the Bible isn’t that far off.

On the other hand, Al Pacino seems like he’s having the time of his life. It would seem that a B-movie like this would be below an actor of his caliber — or at least that he would be phoning it in — but he definitely goes ham here. Admittedly, it’s not the most nuanced performance because he’s pretty much just shouting, but he’s never boring to watch.

Also worthy of note in the cast is Abigail Cowen (Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), who plays the unlucky victim of the possession. While she doesn’t stack up to Linda Blair or anyone like that, she still gives a solidly impressive supporting turn that goes heavy on the physicality. Twilight star Ashley Greene hardly registers with a small role that isn’t substantial enough to impress or disappoint.

Indeed, this middling approach seems to be the nature of The Ritual. There’s nothing about it that’s obtrusively bad, but there’s little original about it either. The only real swing it takes is its visual style, and even that is a mixed bag. There are certainly worse horror films than this, but considering the talent involved, you probably expect more.