Silent Retreat

This movie is... unbelievably bad. I watch a ton of horror movies. The majority are disappointing but entertaining enough with some redeeming qualities. This movie has 0 redeeming qualities. Extremely poor performances, writing, direction, practical effects, dialogue, etc.

In movies, there are so many elements that can be used to tell a story. Not a single one is used advantageously here. It's very possible to tell a story with very little dialogue. Think of A Quiet Place. That movie obviously had much better resources to work with, of course, but still. It used other visual elements to tell you who the characters are, what they're thinking, what they want, what they fear, and why you should care about them. The dialogue that IS present in this movie is so amateur and one dimensional. It feels like the writers need to learn how to write a story before they try to make a movie.

Sometimes, bad movies are fun because they're goofy or campy. This movie was just cringey. I very nearly turned it off in the last 20 minutes, but decided to stick it out instead. I wish I got some kind of reward from the filmmakers for doing so.

Respect to all who worked on it, because it's hard to do regardless, and it's brave to pursue your vision & open yourself to critique. But man, this may be the worst movie I've ever watched.

A troubled teen (Chelsea Jenish) is brought to a strange rehabilitation camp in the woods of the Northeast, which is run by a stern "doctor" and his two sons. The patients are all female and no one is permitted to talk. Meanwhile something malevolent lurks in the woods.

"Silent Retreat" (2013) was shot in Ontario and only cost $185,000 (USD), but is professionally made Indie drama/horror. The locations, actors, music, cinematography, editing and so forth are surprisingly effective for super low-budget fare. Sofia Banzhaf (Alexis) and Jen Pogue (Pink Stripe) stand out in the feminine department.

Unfortunately, there are a few glaring problems. For one, the creature angle wasn't needed and feels undeveloped, not to mention it needlessly turns an interesting story about conformity into gory monster mayhem. Think "The Stepford Wives," minus the robotics, mixed with a dash of "Gargoyles" and the typical Tarantino bloody climax. Then there's the eye-rolling sapphic bit at around the 35-minute mark, which is also just thrown in with zero development. No doubt the director/writer wanted to score points for political correctness and attract an award, which ironically smacks of conformity.

The third issue is the one-dimensional depiction of males and females. There's no balance regarding either gender in liberated Western Civilization. Literally ALL women are suppressed and oppressed while ALL men are controlling, abusing monsters. If this were remotely so, how exactly did Oprah and Ellen have their popular shows and become billionaires?

Then there's the one-dimensional depiction of the Bible's view of women. Don't get me wrong, there are men in real-life like the "doctor," but how about featuring a little more info for some honest balance? Otherwise, viewers will walk away with a skewed understanding of what the Scriptures actually teach on the topic. For instance, God chose Deborah to lead Israel for 40 years spiritually, legally, politically and militarily (Judges 2:16 & 4:4-9). Hebrew men sought instruction from prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20). Miriam assumed the role of prophet during the exodus and led in worship (Exodus 15:20-21). Keep in mind that this was a patriarchal culture in the Near East.

Furthermore, the first evangelists in the New Testament were women sent by Christ who instructed men (Mark 16:1, Luke 24:10, Matthew 28:1-10 & Mark 16:7). Priscilla taught scholar Apollos "more accurately" (Acts 18:24-26). Your see, there is neither male nor female IN Christ (Galatians 3:28). Women with the prophetic gift were expected to prophesy to others and not keep silent, as well as pray in public (1 Corinthians 11:4-5). Philip the evangelist "had four unmarried daughters who prophesied" (Acts 21:9). I'm just supplying additional information for those who might walk away from this film with a twisted understanding of the topic.

I realize this is a low-budget Indie, but how about some balance simply for the sake of honesty and realism?

The movie runs 1 hour, 24 minutes, and was shot in Kettleby, Ontario (I'm assuming Kettleby Valley Camp), which is a dozen miles north of Toronto.

GRADE: C-/D+

I've heard some good thing about this movie, so I give it a chance (even tho AfterDark movies are usually hit or miss).

While it started out OK, then turned weird since it had no dialog for the first 20 minutes or so (which I actually liked), it sacrificed it's premise for more of a standard movie, because message has to be heard, right?

and the feminist(ic) overtone in this movie are so obvious that it really start to hear your ears. While I have no problems with some feminist tones in movies like Stepford Wifes (original): it had feminist ideas within the story, but it still treated itself like sf horror movie, but in Silent Run? Hell no!

Most of the dialogues consist of usual feminist tropes like "We are so oppressed, no one wants to hear us, man want to change us" to the point that movie become too annoying. Every man in this movie is complete psycho who want women to bi silent, obedient and "perfect" wives for themselves who must be at kitchen (they also want girls for their wives purely based on their looks!). They even showed the "woman in kitchen" mame image treating it like serious thing for brainwashing young girls. I am not even kidding. Creature itself that happens to be in the woods for some reason is also a female (also in sign of feminism).

Robert Nolan is only saving grace, he is really good in most of his scenes. Other two lead actresses are also rather descent, it's not their fault that movie is so absurd.

There are some FX scenes which are well made, descent amount of gore for this type of movie (maybe even too much), some blood. Creature design was descent, but not too original, you'll swear you've seen it in some other movie.

Ending was ridiculous with needless fight scene at the end, because hey, you must satisfy the casual audience (who will probably be bored by then anyway). If movie ended with strong emotional scene that happen before it (also, applause for two lead actresses, it was carried purely on their acting, because script didn't do anything to root for any of their characters), it would end on high note, but nope, let's do the generic fight scene and end the movie.

Honestly, if this movies wasn't "So-obviously-feministic" movie, I would probably like it more, but I really couldn't stand annoyance of majority of lines being "we are so oppressed by those evil man"... or at least keep your feminist views at minimum and don't use your movie as way to express your own socio-political ideas.

Look how Stepford Wives turned out (which I actually liked). It managed to poke at feminist ideas, but it was still enjoyable, creepy and "legit" horror movie. It was never used as a way to spew ideas right into audiences faces.

Why the extreme low scores and angry reviews? This movie reminds me of silly late night horror films from the 80s, like you'd see with Elvira. It's almost as if they took 3 or more films and mashed them together. It's odd. It's not perfect.

The simple setting is nice and fits the tone of this idea of a nice quiet place to send delinquent kids.

Then it changes... There's a monster movie, a camp "last girl" gory movie, and a rapey psychological horror movie all suddenly collide into a weird mix. And absurd hypnosis.

The whole thing could have been blah, but the acting of the 2 main girls and some actually well done gory scenes made it enjoyable.

I'm scoring this a bit higher because I just read reviews that gave it a 1 out of 10 (which is way too harsh), then said things they liked. That makes no sense. At least give it a 4 or 5 for those good bits you liked. This movie isn't that bad, so these low scores just seem angry. Some reviews contradict themselves by saying they loved so-and-so in their role, yet scored a 1 or 2. (Perhaps I'm missing some behind-the-scenes drama? Which probably would not matter imo.) I try to focus on the positives, especially online. Spread kindness!

These filmmakers did pretty well with a low budget and lot of hard work. There's a lot of creativity here, maybe unfocused. And the talent shows. Good luck to their future endeavors!

Silent Retreat (2013) is a Canadian movie that I recently watched on Prime. The storyline follows a troubled young lady who is sent to a unique rehabilitation retreat where she isn't allowed to talk. It is rumored there's a dark past at the rehab center and a creature that eats people in the surrounding woods. When other young ladies turn up missing at the center, the students don't know if they've been released, eaten by the creature in the woods or worse... The new girl is itching to find out what's what and try to free the other girls.

This movie is directed by Tricia Lee (Blood Hunters) and stars Sofia Banzhaf (Splinters), Robert Nolan (Sixty Minutes to Midnight), Jen Pogue (The Masked Saint) and Katie Buitendyk (Total Frat Movie).

I found the first hour of this movie frustrating. The storyline was fairly straightforward with some unique elements. There is some good subplots and character development baked in. The acting, writing and dialogue were uneven and disappointing at times. Even the first few horror scenes, which were limited, were shot too dark and missed the mark. But an hour into the movie the horror elements kick up a notch and you get your first great kill with gore and solid flesh eating. The creature in the woods reveal is outstanding and I was left wondering where that was the entire movie. The conclusion is actually pretty good if you can be patient enough to get to it.

Overall, this has some well executed scenes at the end that make it worth a watch but missed an opportunity to be great. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend seeing it once.