The Movie: Corporate Retreat
The Director: Aaron Fisher
The Cast: Alan Ruck, Odeya Rush, Rosanna Arquette, Ashton Sanders, Benjamin Norris, Kirby Johnson, Sasha Lane, Elias Kacavas, Tyler Alvarez, Ellen Toland, Zión Moreno
The Story: Corporate executives on a team-building retreat face a deadly struggle when their leader turns violently against them.
The Rating: 6 / 10
The Review:
One thing that's really fun about horror movies is how it seems like there's no end to the variety of sub-genres and types of filmmaking that can be utilized in so many different ways. From the dark, dreadful gothic horrors of Robert Eggers' films (The Witch, The Lighthouse) to the more outrageous and comedic entries like Shin'ichirô Ueda's One Cut of the Dead or Anna and the Apocalypse which I believe still stands as the only ever Christmas zombie musical.
In this case, Corporate Retreat is an indie film that doesn't back down from creating a series of jaw dropping, wtf moments and continues moving forward with a chaotic story that really doesn't care much about anything other than having some bloody good fun with its characters. This is also quite a departure from writer/director Aaron Fisher's first feature film, 2019's Inside the Rain, an emotionally dramatic story that centers on his own challenges with mental health. To go from something so deeply personal to something so off the rails wild is very interesting see and big shout out for successfully navigating both.
One of the keys for this type of comedic horror to work is to have the type of cast that understands what they are getting themselves into and I feel like everyone we see on screen really understood the assignment with Alan Ruck, yes, the guy who played Cameron in the John Hughes classic Ferris Beuler's Day Off, leading the way as the main antagonist. It's really fun to see him chew up his character's lines and give a performance that's necessary for the audience to believe that he would do the type of things he does as the story goes farther down a blood-soaked rabbit hole.
You'll also recognize familiar faces like Sasha Lane from American Honey, and Ashton Sanders from the Wu-Tang: An American Saga TV show alongside Odeya Rush as a very up to the task final girl and a special appearance from the always incredible Rosanna Arquette who I'll always remember from her brief and chaotic appearance in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, one of my all-time favorite movies.
As I'm sitting here genuinely praising this movie, I hope you also understand just what type of movie this is. It's fun, it's outrageous, it's bloody, and it doesn't take itself seriously at all. If you're looking to pick it apart from a critical viewpoint, you're not going to be impressed. There are a ton of plot holes and things that don't make sense and it's very clear that the filmmakers cared more about having fun than anything else and, for my money, that's exactly what it accomplishes.
Thank you for reading this review and, if you love these types of movies, please give Corporate Retreat a chance. Also, if you haven't seen One Cut of the Dead or Anna and the Apocalypse, why am I even here. I've been waving gigantic flags for both of those movies since each of them came out. They're both labor of love type movies that ended up becoming cult classics and, who knows, maybe this movie will do the same.
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