Silent Retreat

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+

Good 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.

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.

SILENT 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.

I recently watched Silent Retreat (2016) for free on Amazon Prime. The story follows a manager who organizes a cabin retreat in the woods to build rapport among his quirky team. The caretaker is strange, the employees are even stranger, and the manager is hokey and naive (of course). When one employee goes missing during a jog, the group grows suspicious and begins investigating the campground. They uncover that a doctor once conducted bizarre experiments on a boy in that very cabin. Could this be connected to the disappearances?

Directed by Ace Jordan in his debut, the film stars Donny Boaz (The Young and the Restless), Danilo Di Julio (Echoes of Fear), Eli Bildner (The Morning Show), and Devon Ogden (Hollywood Dirt).

The acting and script are unintentionally hilarious-so bad it's entertaining in a "so-bad-it's-not good" way. This feels like a low-budget, made-for-TV horror movie, and not in a good way. I'd rate it 3.5/10 and only recommend it if you're truly out of options.