It’s one of the most timeless setups in the horror pantheon: a group of unsuspecting travelers visit a remote and insular community, only to find themselves sucked into a ritual that places their lives in danger. From “The Wicker Man” to “Midsommar,” the folk horror subgenre has thrived by exploiting our fear of interrupting a tradition that we were never meant to be a part of. The juxtaposition of ignorant tourism and seemingly backwards folk religions produces the kind of gruesome friction that horror filmmakers love to exploit. Now, Nick Frost is ready to find out if audiences are willing to laugh about it too.
Frost writes and stars in “Get Away,” a new horror comedy from director Steffen Haars that applies a dry, British sense of humor to the Pagan Ritual Gone Wrong genre. Best known for his collaborations with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg on the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy that includes “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” and “The World’s End,” Frost clearly knows a thing or two about genre parodies. The film shares quite a bit of DNA with “Shaun of the Dead,” subverting and lampooning tropes of the folk horror genre with the same confidence that Wright used to mock zombie movies. And while the precise classic rock needle drops and silly one-liners don’t feel quite as fresh as they did when “Shaun of the Dead” hit theaters 20 years ago, this breezy film lands like a competent side project that should entertain anyone who still has a hankering for a Cornetto ice cream cone.
After a taxing year, the Smith family desperately needs a vacation. Richard (Frost) is a quintessential dorky dad who struggles to cling to the last few crumbs of respect that his bratty teenagers Sam (Sebastian Croft) and Jessie (Maisie Ayres) hold for him. Things aren’t much better with his condescending wife Susan (Aisling Bea), who walks all over him and then uses their couples’ therapy sessions to urge him to be even less confrontational. The unforgiving grind of raising two moody adolescents has pushed the nuclear family to its breaking point, so they leave for a holiday with the hope that some good old fashioned Scandinavian pageantry will bring them back together.
Their destination is Svälta, a fictional island off the coast of Sweden that’s best known for its Karantän, an annual stage production that celebrates the time its residents turned cannibalistic and ate the British soldiers that occupied their land. The elaborate play features four actors dressed as stereotypical Englishmen being gored in an intricate burst of fight choreography that elicits cheers from the natives. Naturally, it’s the kind of thing that these four clueless Brits decide that they simply must see with their own eyes.
From the moment the Smiths set foot on Svälta, it becomes clear that they selected the wrong vacation spot. From a creepy AirBnB operator to an elderly theatre director who allows actors to roam the town in macabre masks at all hours of the night, the local residents all give the impression that these bulls-in-a-banana-pizza-shop are an unwelcome addition to the annual festivities. With four British people being killed at the end of the play and four British people currently in town, it’s not hard to picture the worst case scenario.
Needless to say, the outcome isn’t nearly that predictable. The film’s very existence is contingent upon a third act twist that will remain unspoiled, but it explains the heavy-handed pacing of the first two acts and sets up a gore-filled climax. “Get Away” works better on paper than as a visceral entertainment experience, as its raison d’etre of subverting folk horror expectations sometimes feels more like a screenwriting class exercise than a fully immersive world. But even if its narrative is occasionally simplistic, the entire film is executed well on a technical level, and the final battle is filled with cleverly blocked shots and lovely practical effects that should moderately entertain horror lovers looking for 86 minutes of fun. It’s no “Shaun of the Dead,” but it might be a better use of your time than a 100th rewatch.
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Grade: B-
An IFC Films release, “Get Away” opens in theaters on Friday, December 6.
