The film “Get Away”, directed by Steffen Haars, does not appear to have a good plot or punchline. Steffen had already ruined a project with the talented actor Nick Frost in his earlier series called “Krazy House”. This series had received horrific reviews earlier this year. The film does offer improvement to the mind-numbing violence of Haars as well as the pathetic modern concept family, but in my opinion, the so-called plot of the film does not suffice. The absurdity of the "turning of the tables" serves as more than enough for claiming a plot. Nick Frost is a talented actor who, in my opinion, deserves much better than what he has been offered so far. Seeing him forced into roles for pieces of garbage that don’t even have enough in them to fill an hour and a half with coherent storytelling is simply disheartening.
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The 'Shaun of the Dead' star plays the relatively mundane Richard Smith, who is the husband of Susan (Aisling Bea) and the father of son Sam (Sebastian Croft) and daughter Jessie (Maisie Ayres). The Smith clan is going on vacation to the Swedish island of Svälta to participate in an annual family event called Karantan. The people of Svälta, however, are not enthusiastic about the prospect of outsiders intruding on a culturally important festivity, especially when they discover that Susan’s descendants have an ominous link to the island. The Smiths, however, promise to remain out of the way as they just watch the action from their AirBnB booking. The first reveal of the echoes of folk horror such as ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘Midsommar’ is very clear, but Haars and Frost also weave in their amazingly long set-up that everything is not as it seems.
Most local culture issues with the Smiths and the locals, as well as the more overt hostility from the residents of Svälta, particularly the AirBnB owner who is spying on the family in a predatory fashion as he spies on Jessie, are packed into the first hour of “Get Away.” Even much of the humor in the set-up is unfunny as Haars and his crew seem to be unsure of what film they’re trying to make. The reality is that the team is only making attempts to stay afloat until they reach the “good stuff” after the film makes a sharp but well signposted right turn that only audience members who aren’t fully awake will be expecting. It’s a reveal that Frost would have been better off exposing earlier for two reasons. One, it’s condescending the way it’s put together now, turning so much of the movie's first half into an intricate but phony illusion. Two, it might actually add more tension if we were allowed to be in on the gag instead of feeling like victims of the manipulation twist.
The plot twist, in fairness, does enable Haars to truly achieve his zenith in the end; overflowing the budgets for cosmetics and faux gore. There is a degree of skill in the staging of the slaughter that happens, revealing more than all of Krazy House or the first hour of this film combines as to why Frost is fascinated with Haars as a filmmaker. For the first time, everyone looks like they are having fun. It’s too bad, though, that the journey took this long.