“The Ritual Killer” (*1/2 out of four) was a bogus serial-killer melodrama about a grizzled detective (Cole Hauser) who is tracking a killer (Vernon Davis) who is practicing black magic rituals and he turns to an elderly professor of African studies (Morgan Freeman) for help. Mostly just unpleasant and by-the-numbers with a ridiculous and unsatisfying ending. Freeman is wasted in the movie and just seems to be cast to serve up memories of the much better “Kiss The Girls” and “Seven” which this movie all-too-obviously inspired. Hard to believe this was directed by George Gallo who in better days was the writer of “Midnight Run.”