A very intelligent friend once asked me why white women get so excited about vacationing in remote cabins where they will inevitably be murdered.
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(Yes, I have been known to book a cabin retreat. No, I have not been murdered…yet.)
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Anyway. I was excited to check out The Retreat (2021) while I was temporarily subscribed to Showtime and watching Yellowjackets S2 (review coming soon!). The film was directed by Pat Mills and written by Alyson Richards – both queers, yay! I went in knowing that, so even though I was dubious when the film started with a gay couple who arrive at said creepy cabin and are immediately attacked/presumed viciously murdered, I was willing to stick around and see what they had in store for me.
The film follows the familiar connect-the-dots path of films before it, but with strong performances from leads Tommie-Amber Pirie and Sarah Allen, not a bad time. The women arrive at the cabin the next day and wander around the woods, see some creepy stuff, and wonder why their friends who were supposed to meet them haven’t shown up. Instead, the baddies show up. They don’t turn on each other (a nice twist), but are inevitably captured.
Then things get weird/interesting. When Tommie’s character Renee comes to, she’s alone and being held hostage with no sign of her partner Valerie. The best part of these scenes with her restrained in her prison are with Celina Sinden who plays Layna, the wife of one of the kidnappers and a real piece of work. Her disdain for the woman she’s holding hostage is palpable and deeply unsettling, and maybe a teeny bit justified when she accuses Renee of not asking about Valerie. Oops.
Turns out Valerie is NOT dead, and neither is one of the friends they’d intended to meet at the cabin. Instead, the two of them are tied up in a totally different location, being tortured on camera for a bunch of sickos on the dark web (I don’t know whether to be heartened or disgusted that their viewing audience hovers around 2,000). These scenes are stomach-turning, but it was a little distracting that Renee was being held somewhere else. Why? Who knows. Who cares! Look, the baddies are turning on each other.
Eventually, Renee does escape and rescue Valerie, though it’s too late for their friend. In revenge, the two women embark on a truly glorious killing spree. It’s so much fun that I almost don’t mind that it’s off-the-wall bananas. The villains are such caricatures that there’s no deeper emotional satisfaction when they get their comeuppance, though the kills are glorious. And perhaps in the revenge sub-genre of horror, there’s also something to the idea that the protagonist(s) must stare death in the face to make their transformation to ruthless killers feel earned. But I can’t be mad that the worst is only done peripherally to them. They both live, which is a kind of victory all its own.
Rating:
By Tiffany Albright
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The 2023 Queer Fear Film Festival regular deadline for short and feature LGBTQIA+ genre films is July 24! Check us out on FilmFreeway. Scare the pants off us. We dare you. 😉
Stay spooky!
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