CORPORATE RETREAT (2026)

New On Demand from Passage Pictures!
Directed by Aaron Fisher.
Written by Aaron Fisher, Kerri Lee Romeo.
Check out the
trailer here!!

A group of corporate executives who recently ousted their company’s founder Arthur (Alan Ruck) gather for a swanky corporate retreat in the middle of nowhere. But once inside, instead of a spa day, the retreat turns vicious as Arthur and his two gun toting minions Ginger and Lola (played by Odeya Rush and Sasha Lane) force the group to achieve seven levels of enlightenment—a series of dangerous tasks to reach greatness, one bloodier than the next.

Somewhere in the scripting process of CORPORATE RETREAT is a half decent movie. The idea of an ousted CEO taking SAW-like revenge on the young upstarts who got him canned is a cool premise. Kind of a horror version of SUCCESSION. But somewhere in the process, the wheels fell off. Maybe the script needed another pass. Maybe it was a pass too much. But the story just fizzes when it should pop. It feels as if a film of much bigger scope was conceived, and then as the budget limited things, everything except the corporate retreat part was left on the cutting room floor.

You see, in order to get to the corporate retreat, a lot of stuff must happen. Arthur must start the company. He must see it to greatness. He must hire the new generation of businesspeople. They must conspire against him. Then he must get ousted and betrayed by them. Then Arthur’s would have to conceive of the plot for revenge at the retreat and discover the five levels of happiness. Finally, the betrayers had to be tricked to show up there. That’s a hell of a lot of stuff and instead of showing us any of this, which makes the story exciting, the movie tells us this, which is boring as all get out. Because so much exposition is necessary, there are a whole lot of scenes where the group of kids stare at a monitor having things explained to them by Cameron from FERRIS BEULLER’S DAY OFF. And that’s not fun. Just no fun at all.

So, the tsunami of exposition ruins the flow of the film. But it also doesn’t help that much of the film simply makes no sense. One of the main girls of the film, Zión Moreno who plays Amber, wasn’t meant to be on the retreat. She’s an outlier. Only there because for some god forsaken reason, her boyfriend, who is one of the betrayers, thought it would be a hoot to bring her on this retreat. What? That…that just doesn’t happen. And he frames this as a big surprise for Amber. And she buys it and goes along with it. Why? Because movies, I guess. The guy also packs a gun for no reason which is conveniently left in a place that will be helpful in the final act. Yes, Chekhov’s gun and all of that, but there must be a reason the gun is there in the first place. And there isn’t.

The fix for this was right there. It’s a movie about corporate America. You don’t need a convoluted reason to bring this inexperienced psych major. She could have just been a naive intern, with a psych background, who was banging the other guy and that would give her a legit reason for her to be there. But why the hell am I filling in the gaping potholes, when the writers didn’t care to?

Much like the SAW movies, a whole lot of random coincidences must happen for all the challenges Arthur has for his betrayers to work. And of course, those coincidences happen. The levels of happiness is another aspect that would have been nice to see discovered or even developed by Arthur. Instead, it seems as if this is something Arthur learned off-screen, after his off-screen ousting. Why not have these seven steps be the reason why Arthur was canned in the first place? That way there’s a point for them being there and why he is punishing his betrayers in this way. Again, I’m writing this for them and need to stop.

The film does have some gory scenes. If these characters had any depth, the gore would have been effective, and I would have cared for why who dies first and so on. Instead, we get kooky names and titles that pop up introducing each character when they arrive. This is fine. But you need more than a name and title to forge some investment. Maybe list a reason why each betrayed Arthur. Or even better, show us why they did it.

I will say CORPORATE RETREAT moves swiftly from one challenge to the next. You have Arthur doing his best Bob Barker impression introducing each level of enlightenment. Alan Ruck tries to be charismatic in these scenes, but that’s not really what the actor is known for. Rosanna Arquette has a blink and you’ll miss it role. I honestly don’t know why she even bothered to be on set for the less than one minute of screen time and significance she has to this plot. The rest of the cast aren’t really given anything to do or say other than fall like dominos.

CORPORATE RETREAT was a big ol’ swing and a miss for me. It wants to be bigger than it is. And even with a script pared down to bare bones, it still feels too bloated. I don’t know how films like this get made. It had a modest budget and a few name actors. But there’s just nothing for them to do and when they aren’t explaining things, they just die in sequence. I’m ok with that if this is a no budget slasher, but something this produced should know better. Sorry, but this movie is just plain bad all around.