The Creature (The Ritual)

The Creature is the main antagonist in the 2017 horror film "The Ritual". It is a Jötunn that inhabits a forest in Northern Sweden and is venerated by an ancient group of cultists.

Background
As described by one of the Swedish cultists, The Creature is a "bastard son" of the Norse god Loki and is one of the Jötnar, a race of supernatural beings in Norse mythology. It appears as an enormous, elk-like monster with bright yellow eyes, skeletal head antlers and a pair of human-like hands on its head.

The Creature follows travelers who enters the forest and "marks" the person who has suffered from emotional pain. That person is later abducted by the cultists and is given a choice; worship The Creature in return for eternal life or die at its hands.

History
A group of friends, Phil, Hutch, Luke and Dom, are hiking in northern Sweden in honor of their friend Rob, who was killed during a store robbery. Hutch converses with Luke and decides to hike through the forest because it is a quicker route back to their lodge. Everyone agrees, and they enter the forest in the early morning.

In the forest, the group notices that it is unsettlingly quiet, and come across a large eviscerated elk, skewered on a tree. As rain comes, the group notice a runic symbol carved on a tree and find an abandoned cabin. Inside, they discover a headless effigy with deer antlers for arms. The friends are unnerved but decide to stay in the cabin. That night, supernatural occurrences begin; Hutch wets himself, Dom awakens the group as he screams in his sleep, Phil is found naked in front of the effigy in prayer and Luke wakes with a strange claw mark on his chest. The group is startled and hurriedly leave the cabin, planning to continue on their hike.

When the group stops due to Dom injuring his leg, Luke climbs to a clearing to scout out the area and sees The Creature hiding behind a tree before it startles him. Dom and Luke get into an argument before they continue. As they camp one evening, Luke awakens to The Creature's footsteps before it abducts Hutch. The friends later find his body in the same manner as the elk; impaled on a tree. Luke climbs to higher ground and sees that they are nearly to their lodge; when he returns, Phil is taken by The Creature and is momentarily found impaled on a tree. Luke and Dom run from The Creature and stumble on a village, where they are held by a group of Swedish cultists. One of them reveals that Luke will be offered to join the group, as they are all marked, but Dom is sacrificed to The Creature.

Luke escapes and ignites the cabins on fire; The Creature appears and kills the surviving cultists out of anger. Luke runs from The Creature until he exits the forest; The Creature halts by the forest's boundary, and cannot cross. Luke and The Creature exchange roars at each other before Luke heads to the lodge.