Deadly Yoga Retreat

As with most (all?) of these Lifetime made-for-TV movies, the plot is fairly obvious via the title. And, also as standard, you get a fairly decent if unspectacular 90-minute movie that is strangely addictive and compelling despite all the shortcomings.

This is the yoga retreat from hell, in a jungle setting somewhere meant to be paradise, where women keep going missing, one after the other.

The instructor (Jonathan Bennett, playing the sort of role that is the very opposite of those he plays in Hallmark Christmas movies) is a menace and it's up to the survivors to band together if they are to survive.

The acting outside of Bennett - the best part of this movie, thanks to his sinister appearance - is also pretty good, better than the Lifetime average. Just like the rest of this film.

The writer really missed the mark. They should have made Remy super charming so the girls were falling over him and have best friend be suspicious. It's LMN-101 after all!

The main gal, Isabella is discontent at home but her husband is sweet, caring and in love with her. The movie descriptor says she's in a bad marriage. Lol

Me and wife wife enjoy cheese. You can choke on the excessive cheese with this one! If you like badly scripted, shabbily acted, dismally directed films, then Deadly Yoga Retreat is for you.

Oh, on a side note, the score may be the lowest rent part of this flick.

At this point, I'm just typing to meet character quota. Seriously, as bad as this is, I couldn't stop watching it.

Biggest.doofus.ever. Besides that, Danielle C. Ryan is amazing and there was so much spandex all around that you couldn't turn away!

Not a bad movie- good distraction on a rainy Sunday.

The lead that played Remy over acted through most of it. Danielle C Ryan was great as usual. She's the reasons I didn't give it one star. She was the only good thing about this movie. She's easily my favorite actor. Extremely underrated. Her character was much too smart to not see all the signs that Remy was crazy and evil. Not plausible IMO. Too many horny women at the retreat considering how hard it was to get in to. Also not plausible IMO. Most were too unserious. I've never given any of Danielle's movies less than an 8 I don't think. A few changes and it could have been great. Some changes in the story but mostly in the acting and directing. Worth watching if you can overlook a few details.

Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with this movie prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2024. And since it was a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a fair chance.

Writers Jay Black and Brian Herzlinger put together a rather generic and bland script and storyline. Sure, the movie was watchable, but it was a very forgettable movie, truth be told. The narrative just simply didn't have enough spice to it to make it a memorable viewing experience. And the pacing of the storyline was rather slow paced, and without a whole lot of interesting things happening as the narrative crept forward at a slow pace, it just was not a compelling movie to sit through.

It was pretty much devoid of thrills. There were a couple of kills throughout the course of the movie, but it was hardly enough to lift up the movie much.

Of the entire cast ensemble in the movie, I was only familiar with actor Jonathan Bennett. I will say, though, that the acting performances in the movie were actually fair.

Watchable for what it was, but "Deadly Yoga Retreat" is a movie that came and went without leaving any kind of lasting impression. And this is definitely not a movie that will find its way back to my screen a second time. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend for fans of the thriller genre to rush out and get to watch.

My rating of director Brian Herzlinger's 2022 TV movie "Deadly Yoga Retreat" lands on a three out of ten stars.