“Corporate Retreat” Horror-Dark Comedy | Official Trailer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nPOSITIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For some inexplainable reason that’s benign to anyone who has seen Corporate Retreat, this is ultimately and unfortunately the movie that Passage Pictures and Western Film Service has decided to invest in financially towards bringing Fisher’s vision to the silver screen, and while the opportunity results in more disappointment than a tax return, there are some credible aspects that ultimately keep it from being among the worst films of the year, beginning with the unwavering depiction behind its stomach-churning gore. This is the singular aspect where the film truly shows its teeth, as not only does Fisher revel in the devious delight of candid depiction, featuring lingering in the imagery that tickles the tummies of carnage candy enthusiasts everywhere, but they’re also enacted with some surprisingly exceptional practical effects that effortlessly and artistically breed tangibility to the bodily trauma, all the while earning every square inch of its intended R-rating. While there are the occasional artificial intrusions with C.G blood deposits that are laughably bad and unrealistic, a majority of these brutally barbaric pay-offs are constructed practically from a team with no reservations on the specificity of detail, in turn elevating so much of Fisher’s tension-free direction with impactful pay-offs that at least make it fun for those depraved audiences who laugh their way through the Terrifier franchise. Likewise, in a sea of compromising performances to the movie’s integrity, Alan Ruck is a breath of fresh air in his character’s maniacal quest for vengeance, balancing anger and intensity accordingly for a primary antagonist who openly embrace instability. While I truly feel that Ruck is bringing presence and limitless energy to the portrayal that is commendable, to say the least, it’s also a scenery-chewing performance that injects attention-stealing adrenaline to each scene that he spontaneously intrudes upon, feeling like the only actor among a sea of inexperienced faces who understands the impulsive objection of his intended direction, lauding the single most memorable performance from the decades old actor in many years. Lastly, while the script itself misfires on several intended explorations with these connected characters and their motivational backstories leading to this untimely retreat, it does manage to enact some intriguing underlining mystery during the converging of pieces throughout the movie’s first half, specifically the who and why of this motivationally materialized conflict. Considering the script undervalues characterization and development so crucially to the movie’s engaging element, it’s quite remarkable that it was able to muster any semblance of curiosity from my experience with it, but consider the mystique and ambiguity factors of something akin to The Belko Experiment being among the best ingredients of Fisher’s direction, breeding concrete potential even to a premise that feels familiar, on account of those initial moments that he’s able to linger so committedly to the chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, Corporate Retreat is everything that was expected from cheaply produced trailers and minimized exposure, leading to an underdeveloped and often times hilariously executed misfire of a finished product that feels like a student film seeking reaffirmation among Fisher’s friends. While I can understand that Fisher is given the kind of miniscule budget that stands out relentlessly on the bigger screen it’s showcased upon, it doesn’t make any of the glaring detractions within this movie any easier to coherently interpret, such as aspects like continuity issues from the editing, or obvious breathing from dead characters, the likes of which don’t require an inflated budget to effectively obscure. Considering this is a movie that seemingly spends all of its time and creative energies attempting to continuously capture gruesome gore from a variety of unappealing angles, it could’ve used some of that instinct to enhance clarity within the visuals of the physical conflict during the movie’s obscurely framed and disjointed climax, which feels like it was shot from the ground level of a kitchen pantry door, complete with shelves and surrounding objects that find their way into the intrusive tendencies of Josh Fisher’s unappealing camera work. On the blame of its budgetary woes, the film’s soundtrack opts for some familiarly popular classics among its depicted framing that should fear harmlessly innocent in conjuring some much needed personality for the captured visuals, however they’re uninfluential covers from artists who can’t remotely do justice to the intention, and instead elicit distracting emphasis to establishing sequences that center around them, causing excessive damage that extends far beyond the clutches of this uninspired film. The script is certainly no better at alleviating this constant feeling of disappointment throughout the engagement, with pancake flat character development and overstuffed dialogue that shoehorns as much exposition about the character that a single sentence can contain. The latter feels like a result of the movie’s 85-minute runtime continuously feeling rushed among the constricted sequencing, where there’s never quite enough time to go around in order to make these interactions transpire naturally and believably, but the former is perhaps the most crucially sacrificial element of the movie’s counterproductive tendencies, where a lack of insight and experience along these mostly ambiguous characters completely undercuts the tension and urgency of their challenges to stay alive, leaving plenty to be desired in the many mounting deaths that transpire without any semblance of emotional impact to the victims. Obviously, the repetitious outlining isn’t free from blame in this chewing gum structure that feels like it immediately loses its flavor, but it’s made so much worse when the stakes don’t correlate meaningfully in ways that allow us to invest in a single one of these unappealing characters, a fact made dire with so many awful performances between a majority of this centralized ensemble driving the engagement. Sometimes these disastrous deliveries pertain to strange approaches that alienate an opportunity to invest towards an important character, such as Odeya Rush’s Ginger, who as the movie’s primary protagonist feels too abrasively supercharged emotionally to ever effectively garner empathy for her wrong place and wrong time scenario, while other times the deliveries lack emphasizing commitment and conviction, in order to sell the emotionality of their rattled responses, and considering this is a film that involves previously proven film veterans like Rosanna Arquette, Sasha Lane, or Ashton Sanders, it’s downright appalling that there isn’t a single commendably contributing performance between them, leaving Ruck to do all of the movie’s heavy lifting while pushing the energies of his deliveries to eleven at all times. Beyond flatlined performances, disabled dialogue, and budgetary limitations, Fisher also finds grave difficulty attaching a tonal consistency to a movie that revels in mean-spiritedness with such unappealing characters, tying lazy comedy, sarcastic scares, and absolved drama to a film that attempts so much while realistically succeeding at nothing. It isn’t without noticeable effort, as Fisher’s unflinching depiction towards gruesome gore is sure to elicit reactionary responses to any spectrum of the horror audience, old and young, but it’s just that so much of this briskly forgettable engagement transpires without the patience to mold a clear and concise focused intention to its intended destination, and with each of the three acts feeling like three completely different films on account of the character’s increasing vulnerability and disadvantage in numbers, there isn’t the kind of personality or profound outlook on workforce dynamics discussions to take full advantage of the minimized opportunity derived from the thankless material, resulting in a reach and corresponding grasp from a hand that lacks the grip to fully realize an intentional foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OVERALL
Corporate Retreat is every bit the lethargically languishing and sacrificial waste of time that most workplace bonding workshops typically subscribe to, but without any of the interactive insight of those involved to grasp a deeper significance towards their correlating impacts. Without the practical effects work garnering a grisly stomach-churning indugence in the faithfulness of its undeterred focus, or the anxiously maniacal turn from Alan Ruck, the film would be even worse than it legitimately already is, but even with pleasantries included, Aaron Fisher’s film is still a mean-spirited and cheaply enacted watercooler waste, without any of the preconceived tension or decorated pay-off as the far superior The Belko Experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Grade: 3.6 or F<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed By Aaron Fisher Starring – Odeya Rush, Alan Ruck, Rosanna Arquette The Plot – A savage horror-dark comedy that sends a group of ambitious young executives on a luxury team-building escape, only to strip it down into a brutal, blood-soaked fight for survival. Equal parts vicious satire and survival nightmare, the film skewers corporate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9688"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9690,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9688\/revisions\/9690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}