I was looking for something to watch off one of my watchlists, and there was Get Away. Now, Nick Frost is a comedic actor whose work I pretty much always love, so seeing he wrote a horror movie (with strong comedic elements), one where he’s the English father trying to enjoy a good family vacation on a remote Swedish island where the locals hate strangers, especially the English, well, that certainly sounds promising if nothing else.
Besides, Frost is hardly the first comedic actor to go into horror. Maybe he’s got a knack for it when he doesn’t have Edgar Wright or Simon Pegg to back him up.
Richard (Frost) and his wife Susan (Aisling Bea) are headed off to a vacation on the remote Swedish island Svalta with their two moody teenage kids, son Sam (Sebastian Croft) and daughter Jessie (Maisie Ayres). Before they even get to Svalta, the family is vaguely aware that the island doesn’t welcome outsiders around the time of an annual festival (for lack of a better word) that includes an eight-hour play that depicts a dark time from Svalta’s history when a plague forced the island to be cut off from the mainland as part of a quarantine, a moment made worse by the English apparently. There’s no way on or off the island during this period, and outsiders are absolutely unwelcome by the community.
However, local outcast Mats (Eero Milonoff) rented out his guest house as part of an RB&B thing, and the family seems to be completely incapable of taking a hint. There are more than a few warnings of varying levels of subtlety, and the family just seems to shrug it off as local color. As such, when the old woman who is producing the play starts talking about bringing back the other tradition–the cannibalization of outsiders who just so happen to be there–then it might be bad news for the family.
So, here’s the thing: this movie wasn’t doing much for me for most of the run time. The humor was very low-key and didn’t always work for me. The horror elements were more weird than even remotely scary. I just wasn’t feeling it for most of the run time. And then Act 3 comes along, something happens that I was genuinely amused by, and the movie improved. Granted, it didn’t improve much, but it did do something very clever, and I always appreciate that sort of thing.
It’s the sort of thing that makes me wonder if a good twist can make up for a so-so movie. In the grand scheme of things, not really. The twist here is genuinely good, and the movie does some good stuff with it, but I’ve seen better, especially with Frost. I’d say check this one out if you’re a Frost fan, and that’s about it.
Grade: C+
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