This movie looks like and feels like a crappy porn movie. The acting is stilted and borderline offensive in it's inadequacy (the girl with the fake English accent is horrendous), the director did not seem to know what the hell he was doing, the script comes off as bad fan fiction, and the movie itself is predictable, clichéd and asinine. I mean, what were these people thinking? Did the actors really read this script and tell themselves, "I will be proud to add this to my resume?". If they did, it's no wonder I have never seen anyone act in anything else. Your poor judgment will be detrimental to your careers if you keep taking these skid-marked roles. Learn to say no when a script is garbage. Ask questions and offer insight as to how you can enhance the writer's vision. But, above all else, never work on another project ever again. I have seen porn films with better acting than this movie, and the FEW instances of blood and gore are so few and far between as to make this a XXX feature without any sex, class or creative vision. Just a freaking mess from beginning to end. I offer nothing but vomit for this travesty. May it be forgotten like the cesspool of talent it is.
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quincytheodore1 March 2016Usually, a horror cast would have one or two rowdy member, but in this "Silent Retreat" almost everyone is rude, offensive and abusive. A couple of characters who seems normal are either too bland or stuck in perpetual frantic expression to look normal as human. This is a shame because it might have some foundation for horror and the production isn't bad, but the constant bickering by obnoxious characters is all this retreat can offer.
A collection of dubious people stay in a cabin for the weekend, and these might just be the most offensive cast. They communicate with profanity, sexual harassment and completely illogical banter. At no point the movie portrays a functional team, let alone actual coworkers. Everyone is the over-the-top version of the most annoying stereotype, which is undoubtedly terrible to watch.
It's barely a horror as any shred of prospect is hidden under juvenile insults and terrible remarks wanting to be seductive talk. The photography involved and a few of the flashbacks are almost looking like they are going somewhere, but instead the characters would wander around aimlessly for nearly the entire movie. It relies on a shocking twist which is not sufficient to say the least.
The only haunting here is the horrendous shouting between the shady characters, and it's actually a pretty horrific experience. -
Leofwine_draca14 June 2016SILENT RETREAT is your latest no-budget horror flick with no redeeming values and a lot of bad stuff indeed. It's a poorly-shot, poorly-acted mess, with a predictable storyline that goes nowhere and a general lack of motivation that makes it difficult to sit through. This is amateurish stuff indeed, with a bunch of hateful characters vacationing in a remote cabin for the weekend and finding themselves menaced by a foe. There's no sex or gore to speak of so nothing for the horror or exploitation fan, and indeed 99% of the running time consists of characters just wandering around aimlessly.
What we do get is a whole lot of arguing and insults between the unpleasant cast members. It feels as if the scriptwriters went out of their way to make the characters as unlikeable as possible, and it works; you'll be itching for them to die violently after about five minutes, although sadly it doesn't work out that way. I also have to laugh at the way these cheap US films always seem to have one Brit in the cast whose accent sounds completely unrealistic to this British viewer. -
The film starts out with an incident at a mental hospital and then changes. The hospital has been converted into a retreat where a company is holding a getaway to brainstorm increased production. The cast of politically incorrect characters and comments made the film interesting. Teddy (Eli Bildner) and Lira (Devon Ogden) are polar opposites who annoy everyone. Rita (Trista Robinson) has a high squeaky voice and loves Jesus.
The connection of the past to the present was not as clever as the writers thought and the climax ruined a great cast of characters. I give credit to the director and cast, but the plot wasn't exciting.
Guide: F-bomb, sex, distant nudity ( Devon Ogden?) -
So I did watch this all the way through, as difficult at that was. Most of the previous 5 reviews hit the major points. Poor acting, nonsensical dialogue, annoying characters. Nice setting, and a few of wilderness shot were pleasant, but that's about it. I lost it, and almost turned the movie off when I realized, that as day passed and turned into evening, the group was sitting around enjoying a glass of wine and some scary stories - that the one female character who left for a morning walk, never returned? Really, after warning everyone not to venture outside because of bear sightings, the host, and most of the others just forgot about this girl (who also missed the entire day of meetings I presume), and better yet, thought they'd wait until morning to look for her. Ridiculous, and the remainder of the plot, the actions of the characters, make no sense. The British girl decides to put on headphones to listen to tapes, while people are missing, some presumed dead, and she's alone in the house. The headphones conveniently drown out the noise of altercations and murders one floor below - great writing. I could go on. I enjoy B horror, even C, this one as hard to watch. One more item, when they check on the caretaker's place, the one dude is sure the missing girl is behind the locked door. But the other dude says you need more than suspicion to force the door, so they leave. If you look at the scene, there is an un-draped window almost directly behind the tied up girl, had they stepped outside and peeked in, they would have found her.
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thomasrobbins26 February 2019OMG,
Horrible writing by an angry, selfish, anti-everybody (especially those of faith) little child who thinks he has something to contribute to something....so sad it hurts. I hope whomever wrote or supported this film is getting some help, or perhaps someday will pick up a book. A car crash that nobody bothers to even look at....yep, that bad... -
I recently caught this movie free on Amazon Prime. The story is about a manager who decides to book a work trip to build rapport between team members at a cabin retreat in the woods. The caretaker seems strange, almost as strange as the employees, and the manager is a bit hokie and naive (of course). When one of the employees turns up missing during her jog the group becomes suspicious and starts investigating the camp ground. They discover a doctor used to run strange tests on a boy in that very cabin. Does that have anything to do woth the disappearances? The acting and script for this picture is hilarious; literally, funny how bad it is but is entertaining because of how poor it is. This is one of those made for TV horror caliber movies, in a bad way. Definitely has an independent, low budget feel to it. I'd score it a 3.5/10 and would only recommend it if nothing else is on.
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I came across this as one of those "Customers also watched..." picks. Basically a group of co-workers head up to a cabin for a weekend and learn the cabin used to be a psych hospital for kids...you can tell none of the actors nor the writers ever held corporate jobs by the way they keep referring to "next quarter's numbers" but that non withstanding, the co workers begin disappearing and dying off in some incredibly cliche ways. In the end, we learn one of the co workers is schizophrenic and used to be a patient as a child. When he conveniently runs out of medication on the trip, he instantly decided to start killing off everyone. The entire plot was predictable as a sunrise and the only thing i found entertaining was how Trista Robinson sounds like a 6yr old child.
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utahman197112 March 2016Did we watch the same movie? This did not have any porn elements in it. Not even close. It had some short sex scene that showed nothing and a boob flash but that is it. Who ever thinks anything close to a porn for this movie is stupid.
The whole movie was dumb as they come or one of the worst and to consider it even a horror is dumb. It had lame of hardly any gore and the action was not hardly any. It dragged for a whole 60 minutes and then still was bad.
The ending was not much of an ending. People that like slow horror movies would love this and if you don't then why do you like them in the first place? Acting was seriously bad as heck. The accent girl was terrible.
None of the actors worked well together. Director must of thought, "What the hell?" and just did it anyways. Just a quick buck. Wrong Turn series has more porn elements than this movie. -
RatedVforVinny4 November 2018Hard to find too much merrit about this one, so if you have seen it, you will probably agree and if not, then there are plenty more effective examples, of the 'Young Persons in Perril' genre, you could seek out instead.
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Lugodoc24 June 2016Just watched this. Holy Cow.
It tries really hard but neither the writer, director nor actors have ever seen how humans behave. It might have been written by a top secret corporate A.I. as part of a Turing test but it sure wasn't written by a human who had seen how other humans talk and act. That might explain the writing but the acting and direction still lack explanation.
The actual plot mechanics are pretty good and the story does actually make sense, for what it is. The lighting and photography are excellent. Other than that it's a bit like watching that Dennis Potter play where adult actors read lines written for eight-year-old children, except that here the mental age looks like nearer to eleven.
I have this theory that every film, no matter how bad it is, will always have at least one moment that is startling, that makes you raise your eyebrows, something that you haven't seen before and that you suddenly respect because it is new in an industry ripe with plagiarism and repetition. This film has one such moment. Can you guess which it is? -
OldSkoolProd19 August 2018This was a good movie. It had all the elements of a traditional slasher flick, except the excessive nudity. The acting was fairly good.. (Better then most slasher flicks.) The story was great. It wasn't too predictable. There were no plot holes missing...... (unlike most blockbusters). The ending was great.
You really should watch this. -
melonieallen16 February 2021Good twist, but not a horror. The scenes do not scare you as the effects do not have much blood and gore. Needs better makeup and effects. Story line is ok but needs to have better script. Who fails to tell another person if something bad has happened and settles by saying "I have to tell you something " but is happy with the response of nothing.
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fearlesshs21 August 2017Watched this movie but was never sure how they want to pursue horror... I mean seriously? Movie builds some confidence while showing plot connections with mental hospital and the business trip people in the first few minutes but then I was just eagerly waiting for a horror pop-up when in between they just wanted to make it sensually interesting! Woah? Dude falling off the stairs dies without blood or bruises? OK then they tried covering up for that by surprise human hunt for what I'm still wondering... Not even good use of camera tricks for horrifying but then confusingly clarifying the fuss made up till the end... No boy, competition for horror is far ahead than what you thinking! Stars can be for acting, least to be said
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TheLittleSongbird8 May 2018Saw 'Silent Retreat' being fond of horror/thriller regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre), and the cover was cool. Was less taken by the concept though, which sounded ridiculous. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing.
Unfortunately, do have to agree with the low rating and the poor reviews. 'Silent Retreat' is one of those films that never took off, starting off not very interestingly and never recovered and progressively got worse, particularly in the near-unwatchable later stages. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to not make 'Silent Retreat' an exception, so gave it a fair chance.
The location is also suitably spooky.
However, so much brings 'Silent Retreat' down. All the acting is either over-histrionic or disinterested, both in a few cases, and the direction is so phoned in and pedestrian, one gets the sense that the director showed no interest in the film at all. Too much of the soundtrack is intrusive and annoying, made worse by the excessive and obvious sound effects that just cheapens the mood. The film looks drab generally and like it was made in haste, the photography especially betrays that with its amateurishness.
Where 'Silent Retreat' most underwhelms is the writing and story. The writing is incredibly lazy, it's awkward in dialogue, is gratuitously crude, confused because of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very limp pace, apparent early on and gets slower and slower until an interminably dragged out and ridiculous second half. It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding. The stereotypical characters are as unlikeable as they come, the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down further.
For a film billed as a horror, there is very little interesting and nothing remotely scary which makes a waste of such a spooky-looking location. The scares and thrills are too few, barely any even, and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the dull pacing and obvious sound editing cheapening them significantly. 'Silent Retreat' doesn't engage let alone thrill, the more it progressed the duller, predictable and more nonsensical it became for a premise that was already ridiculous. The ending leaves very little impact, very contrived and not much of one at all.
In summary, very poor on the whole. 1/10 Bethany Cox -
Brakathor18 March 2020Honestly, I thought this was on the VERGE of being pretty good. Does it have limitations? Sure it does: shoestring budget parlayed into sub-par special effects, unvetted aspiring actors, overly convoluted script, awkward directing in places. All that being said, this movie does one thing which I really really like in horror films, which I seldom see: it throws a stack of characters into a panic scenario where they all separate, are fending for themselves, and slowly one by one they're pulled into the reality of the situation. It's hard to describe exactly the atmosphere I'm talking about here, but basically, a group of people who all get separated, and befall misfortunes one by one. There's a very moody atmosphere to this type of concept which I like a lot. Another film that conveyed this pretty well was "Session 9."
The director had a clear vision of what he was doing, and I think it's unfair to say that he wasn't at least semi successful. For one thing, I thought the mental disorder of the protagonist was very well handled. As someone who's been closely involved with people who suffer from extreme hallucinations, I appreciate how this plot point was worked in to synchronize with the characters around the protagonist. It really annoys me when you have a character who's dealing with this, and it's like they can flip it on and off when it's convenient, and nobody around them notices anything askew.
So, do the films strength's make up for the weaknesses? In my opinion yes. A lot of people seem to think the actors are horrible. Some of the characters come across as a little cliched, but honestly none of them bothered me that much, in terms of acting, speaking only for myself. In the end, I think there's one major point of focus which screws this film up in a bad way. The director leans towards giving it a mystery vibe rather than a thriller vibe, and as such, the plot comes across as convoluted in a way that's disconnected and distracting. The vague "Psycho" reference of the fly shows you sort of where his head was at.
If the director started out by putting everything on the table, and making it a more focused character study like say with Jack Torrence in "The Shinning", I think it would have done leaps and bounds at better selling the premise. The plot points do come across as forced and cliched, largely because the character seems too disconnected from the backstory. It's like a spy movie where the spy saves the day by manually flying a plane, or something of the sport, or just by chance, he knew the main terrorist since childhood, and thus is able to talk him into a resolution. We're supposed to take it for granted, but it comes across as very convenient and inorganic. You'd think the character himself would be a little more aware and calculating, in terms of what was unfolding but no; it comes across as an unfolding mystery to him as well, which doesn't quite fit with what's really motivating him here.
Personally, I'd have liked to see the initial abduction of the crazy religious girl, for example. Didn't really need a whole mystery around it. Just put all the cards on the table and build up that backstory; we already kind of know what's going on anyway. Taking everything into balance, I still thought the film was passable. It does just enough to be credible in its own right. You could definitely do worse, and I think this is not a bad first attempt for a fledging director. All it needed, in a phrase, was tighter execution. -
Wuchakk18 September 2023Several team-members of a media company take a retreat in the Big Bear area of SoCal, along with the wannabe hottie's beau. A dubious caretaker lurks nearby. When people start coming up missing, the questionable history of the renovated lodge is unearthed.
"Silent Retreat" (2016) is a micro-budget Indie with the typical issues thereof, but it includes practically all of the staples required in a cabin-in-the-woods flick. Critics complain about "bad acting" and how all the characters are "unlikable," but this is not true. The script is well-written and the no-name actors strike the right tone for the material, mostly serious but some of them with a wink of hammy-ness.
There are only two disagreeable characters, the goofball who tries too hard to be amusing (because he pathetically needs attention) and the loose Jezebel. We've all met people in real-life just like these two; they're just slightly exaggerated and comical here.
Indie horror or not, the locations are excellent, the drama is consistently entertaining, and the writer/director successfully implements an unexpected twist in the final act. I also like how the lying "Jezebel" (Devon Ogden) and the crude clown (Eli Bildner) are contrasted by the petite Christian lass (Trista Robinson) and the winsome protagonist (Rebecca Summers), not to mention the noble Zac (Donny Boaz). One character rightly observes that the goofball never takes anything serious, but watch his change in demeanor in the second half.
Remember the beginning of "The Edge" (1997), which took place at a beautiful lodge in the western wilderness? Now imagine an entire movie with that setting, albeit on a modest budget featuring a different challenge and with a bit o' humor. That's this film.
Some people don't appreciate micro-budget horror flicks; I do, at least when they deliver the goods.
The movie runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot at Big Bear Lake, which is about 95 miles east of Los Angeles in the high country; other locations include Angelus Oaks, Trabuco Canyon and Anaheim.
GRADE: B-/C+