Writers are notorious for our love of writing retreats, especially if they promise isolation, an exotic locale, and plenty of chances to torture ourselves with our insecurities. Writers Retreat takes all these and adds a generous dose of secrets and mental instability, along with a psycho on the loose. Sounds like a good premise for a horror movie, right? Alas, it’s not, in this UK-based ho-hum of a movie which begs the question, “Who Cares?”.
Okay, so if you’ve read this far and decided to go ahead and give Writers Retreat a watch anyway, here’s the lowdown: a group of strangers, all writers of varying levels of ability, gather on a remote island for writing and group critique sessions (cringe). One writer soon disappears, but the writing and critiquing continues unabated. Still awake? Okay, this continues for the first half of the movie, as characters’ secrets are unveiled very s-l-o-w-l-y. Finally, the action ramps up a bit as one by one, characters are given the ultimate torture: rejection by snail mail. NO! Murder by various gory methods. At last, our demented bad person is revealed and this person attempts to murder several writers, but – gasp! – some get away! To which the murderer screams, “For the love of God, won’t you ever die?!” The excitement just continues from there, so to find out if anyone goes on to write and critique another day…nah, save these 89 minutes for something much more exciting. Nail clippers anyone?
- Top Scare: Outside at Night
- Heartbeats: 1 out of 5
- Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
- Suspense Factor: 1 out of 5
- Recommended for: 15 and up, due to gore