Sign In / Sign Up

Silent Retreat

Silent Retreat
Release date: 2016-01-12
Rating: 4.4
Votes: 37
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Horror
Six members of a media company go on a weekend business retreat at an isolated lodge in the woods. When one of the members goes missing, they discover that the lodge was formerly a private mental institution that had been shut down after allegations of devious misconduct. One by one, they fall victim to the dark secrets buried at the lodge.

Reviews

Wuchak

Wuchak

**_Seven people take a getaway to a cabin in the woods (no, really)_** Several 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+

Movie Recommendation

  • Detroit
    Detroit
    2017-07-28
    A police raid in Detroit in 1967 results in one of the largest citizens' uprisings in the history of the United States.
    More...
  • Millonario sin amor
    Millonario sin amor
    2021-09-01
    A successful TV executive changes his identity and moves to a poor neighborhood in search of real human connection. There, he falls for an aspiring actress trying to start her career at the channel he runs.
    More...
  • Bastard
    Bastard
    2015-10-16
    Five strangers - newlywed serial killers, a suicidal, depressed policeman, and two young runaways with a secret - become suspects and potential victims when a masked murderer makes its presence known in an isolated mountain town.
    More...
  • Titanic
    Titanic
    1997-12-18
    101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
    More...
  • PK
    PK
    2014-12-18
    A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.
    More...
  • Soul
    Soul
    2020-12-25
    Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.
    More...
  • Oppenheimer
    Oppenheimer
    2023-07-19
    The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
    More...
  • Joker
    Joker
    2019-10-01
    During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.
    More...
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
    2001-11-16
    Harry Potter has lived under the stairs at his aunt and uncle's house his whole life. But on his 11th birthday, he learns he's a powerful wizard—with a place waiting for him at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As he learns to harness his newfound powers with the help of the school's kindly headmaster, Harry uncovers the truth about his parents' deaths—and about the villain who's to blame.
    More...
  • Back to the Future
    Back to the Future
    1985-07-03
    Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.
    More...
  • 8 Mile
    8 Mile
    2002-11-08
    For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.
    More...
  • In Time
    In Time
    2011-10-27
    In the not-too-distant future, the aging gene has been switched off. To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest struggle to negotiate for their immortality. A poor young man who suddenly comes into a fortune of time finds himself on the run from a corrupt police force known as the "time keepers".
    More...
  • Batman Begins
    Batman Begins
    2005-06-10
    Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corruption that plagues his home, Gotham City. Unable to work within the system, he instead creates a new identity, a symbol of fear for the criminal underworld - The Batman.
    More...
  • Rush
    Rush
    2013-09-02
    In the 1970s, a rivalry propels race car drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt to fame and glory — until a horrible accident threatens to end it all.
    More...
  • Inside Out
    Inside Out
    2015-06-17
    When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.
    More...
  • Ex Machina
    Ex Machina
    2015-01-21
    Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
    More...
  • Gifted
    Gifted
    2017-04-07
    Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.
    More...
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    2014-03-20
    After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America is living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy—the Winter Soldier.
    More...
  • Black Panther
    Black Panther
    2018-02-13
    King T'Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country's new leader. However, T'Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne by factions within his own country as well as without. Using powers reserved to Wakandan kings, T'Challa assumes the Black Panther mantle to join with ex-girlfriend Nakia, the queen-mother, his princess-kid sister, members of the Dora Milaje (the Wakandan 'special forces') and an American secret agent, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.
    More...
  • Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
    Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
    2019-07-24
    Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton, a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth, his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate, who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski…
    More...

Similar Movies