GET AWAY (2024)

New in select theaters from XYZ Films!
Directed by Steffen Haars.
Written by Nick Frost.
Check out the trailer here!!

Nick Frost plays Richard, the patriarch of a UK family who decide to go to Svalta, a remote Swedish island, for vacation. His wife Susan (Aisling Bea) claims her ancestors are from the island and looks forward to experience the island’s Festival of Karantan, which celebrates the island’s violent founding.
Richard can’t wait to spend time with his family, though his kids; Sam (Sebastian Croft) and Jesse (Maisie Ayers), would love to be anywhere else. Though they ignore the warnings from the locals to not go to the island, Richard and his family go anyway and find that this planned cultural experience isn’t going to be as quaint as they expected.

The Griswalds go to THE WICKER MAN island or for you modern kids, MIDSOMMAR Vacation. Nick Frost reteams with Steffen Haars, who also directed him in KRAZY HOUSE, which I have yet to see. GET AWAY is a satire on the recent folk horror craze. Everything you’d expect to see in a folk horror flick is there. The rituals. The weird harvesty masks. The worshipping of age old traditions. The reclusive locals. The strangers in a strange land. It’s all there. It’s just, this time, it’s being done as a comedy. And it works splendidly.

Frost plays the sheepish and corny dad just looking for some time to reconnect with his family. It’s great seeing Frost return this year in three horror films. While I didn’t really like BLACK CAB, GET AWAY is more interesting and fun as it seems to lean towards Frost’s comedic talents rather than flexing his dramatic muscles. Sure, Frost can do a decent job with drama but GET AWAY shows where the man is comfortable and at his best. Here, he embodies Clark Griswald’s unwavering optimism and desire to recapture those golden years. As Richard, he delivers painful dad jokes and plays the butt of other jokes, yet still shows his snarkier side when those expectations are beat down by his asshole kids and this strange island cult.

The wonderful Aisling Bea keeps right up with Frost’s comedic wit, delivering some barbed humor and witty comebacks to the less than friendly locals. Frost and Bea throw out some wonderful back-and-forthings with the ease of a classic comedic duo, really making it seem like this married couple have known each other for a lifetime. And the kids are great too. Much like Rusty and Audrey from the VACATION movies, they are jaded and bratty, mocking their lame parents and longing to be back home and miserable rather than on vacation and miserable. Maisie Ayers is especially good as the monotone Jesse, who has a love hate relationship with her brother, yet also delivers some tender moments with Frost.

Adding to the comedy is the delightful Eero Milonoff (from BORDER and more recently, AZRAEL) who plays the creepy owner of the Bed and Breakfast the family is staying at. Yes, the man looks strange, but he also skates that line of being a lovable innocent soul and a devilishly perverted monster so well. I hope this actor gets a lot of work. Horror would be all the better with Milonoff taking more genre roles.

And I haven’t even mentioned the fantastic performances from INVINCIBLE’s Jouko Ahola and Anitta Suikkari who are great as the town elders, who loathe seeing these tourists invade their island. I’m focusing on the cast because, really, it is this group of actors that really makes GET AWAY shine. The familial interactions/conflicts may be familiar, but set against the folk horror template, it all feels fresh and new. The various personalities feel developed and the actors feel comfortable in the roles, maybe because they are basing themselves on those old VACATION movies. Either way, the cast delivers the comedy crisply and wickedly.

There is a huge turn in the story and things get absolutely blood-drenched soon enough, but the build featuring these characters interacting with one another is so much fun that it makes you overlook what could be labeled as a rather predictable turn. This development is best left witnessed and not spoiled, so that’s all I will say about that.

Just know that Frost and Co. have delivered a film that feels as if it made in the same vein as SHAUN OF THE DEAD, cleverly taking expectations we usually see in folk horror and flipping the hell out of them. I highly recommend this horror comedy that tickles and intrigues, but never forgets the blood and scares too.

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Music Written by Tim Heidecker
Music & Arrangement by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy https://youtu.be/PDySbxQgZMg
(I do not own this music)