A retreat is meant to recharge the mind and body as it forces a break from everyday life. That’s difficult to do when it comes to work retreats, and even more so when it comes to horror. Teambuilding or wellness retreats instead lead to terror and intense bids for survival, which is the case in horror comedy Corporate Retreat, in theaters on May 22.
Corporate Retreat centers around a group of young executives whose luxury team-building trip descends into a bloody fight for survival against a vengeful retreat leader, described as “a gory mix of The Menu and Saw.” Aaron Fisher (Inside the Rain) directs from a script he co-wrote with Kerri Lee Romeo.
While the unlucky team members find themselves fighting to survive, they’re hardly alone. Ahead of Corporate Retreat, here are five more horror movies to see out that prove retreats can be hell.
A Cure For Wellness
Stockbroker Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) gets sent to a mysterious wellness retreat in the remote Swiss Alps to retrieve his company’s CEO (Harry Groener) in A Cure for Wellness. When he begins to suspect the center’s magic cure isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, the doctors diagnose Lockhart with an illness, admit him as a patient, and subject him to bizarre and cringe-inducing procedures. Gore Verbinski’s sense of grandeur is fully displayed in this stunning, epic-sized tale that’ll viscerally trigger dentophobia. Mia Goth and Jason Isaacs also star in Verbinski’s melodramatic Gothic horror film.
Corporate Animals
Before The Substance, Demi Moore played Lucy, the CEO of Incredible Edibles, a company that appeals to the ecologically conscious with edible cutlery products. She’s ruthless, selfish, and full of buzzwords. That means that she may be at the bottom of the food chain when her work retreat trip to the wilderness instead traps her team in a cave with dwindling resources. Creep director Patrick Brice aims for laughs above all in this corporate satire from screenwriter Sam Bain (Four Lions, Fresh Meat).
The Conference
It’s not just corruption that derails a teambuilding conference in Swedish horror comedy The Conference, but a masked killer hellbent on revenge. Work frustrations get worked out through brutal dispatches and demises in a slasher that takes its horror seriously and doesn’t veer too far into overly silly territory. A memorable killer mask and mean kills prevent this familiar slasher from becoming stale. Patrik Eklund directs the adaptation of Mats Strandberg’s novel; Katia Winter (“The Boys”, Banshee Chapter) stars.
The Invitation
The Invitation brings the wellness retreat home to unnerving results. Will (Logan Marshall-Green) accepts an invitation to his ex-wife’s dinner party, which quickly proves to reopen old wounds. Awkward social interactions turn into something far more sinister when hostess Eden (Tammy Blanchard) reveals her cultish reasons why she’s been absent the past two years, and that retreat has inspired her malevolent present. Karyn Kusama’s master class in unsettling psychological horror builds to one of the most unforgettable third acts of all time, with a final parting shot that elicits chills.
The Howling
A harrowing encounter with a serial killer prompts a reporter’s therapist to send her to a wellness retreat to recover from the trauma. Instead, she finds the idyllic resort infested with werewolves. Dee Wallace starred as the tormented reporter, Karen White, in Joe Dante’s seminal werewolf film featuring incredible practical effects by SFX legend Rob Bottin, who was only 21 at the time.
Corporate Retreat releases in theaters this Friday; get tickets now.
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