The Retreat is a movie that suffers from the weird decision to film it in the dark. The movie has long sequences at night (or inside without lights) that are so black I could barely see anything at all. This wasn’t shot day-for-night or with mysterious incidental lighting… it was shot in the dark.

The Retreat is about a lesbian couple who get out of the city to a gay-friendly retreat in the country. When a bunch of homophobic neighbors take objection, they are kidnapped and tormented until one of them escapes. And you better belief cathartic revenge is on the menu.

This film is very short – just a little over 80 minutes – and we spend little time with the couple OR the villains. This kind of gleeful revenge flick partially works best when we connect more with the protagonists and really spent time hating the villains. But the movie just goes for short-hand – they are homophobic assholes so they need to be murderized. Fair enough in your horror movie… but this was done so much better in Ready or Not and You’re Next. Movies where we got to know the heroes and got to hoot and hiss at the villains more.

But, then again, maybe too short is better when the movie is impossible to see. I already banged on about that above, but it’s true. It’s hard to get invested when you’re squinting at the screen trying to make out what exactly you’re seeing.

As far as as the violence in the movie goes, sometimes it’s very brutal and uncomfortable. These aren’t Carnivorous Humanoid Underground Dwellers or mutant survivors of atomic blasts or even backwoods cultists… these are just racist assholes and they act like murderous racist assholes (so I guess they are CHUDs after all). It’s a little hard to watch… But at least we get some cathartic violent revenge in exchange which is always welcome.

So this is an alright movie that’s short-changed by its running time and its terrible cinematography decisions. It’s a little uncomfortably brutal at times as the premise is not exactly fun fun in the summer sun. But it can work as revenge fantasy. Decent enough.

Score: 71