Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Get Away’ on Shudder, a Goofy Spoof of Folk-Horror Tropes Via Funnyguy Nick Frost

Get Away (now streaming on Shudder) is a tongue-through-the-stab-hole-in-the-cheek riff on folk horror starring Nick Frost, immortal for his participation in horror-comedy benchmark Shaun of the Dead. The amiable Brit funnyguy known for his frequent collaborations with pals Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright followed the trio’s beloved Cornetto Trilogy with some dabblings in big Hollywood films (e.g. Snow White and the Huntsman) before landing various voiceover roles and turning up in indie films like this one here, which he wrote and produced for Steffen Haars to direct. And the result is a fairly clever bloodsoaked comedy in which he plays the father of a family that seems to be stumbling cluelessly into the vacation from hell.

GET AWAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: On the wee Swedish island of Svalta lives a small community of følks who perform an annual celebration known as Karantan, where they stage a historical reenactment of the murder and cannibalizing – in that order – of British colonizers. I guess that’s what you get when you show up thinking you own everything you touch, eh? And for some reason, this goofy family of Brits thinks Karantan is a mighty fine reason to take a vacation: Richard (Frost) is the dad, Susan (Aisling Bea) is the mom and Sam (Sebastian Croft) and Jessie (Maisie Ayres) are their teenage kids. Turns out Susan’s great-great-great-etc. grandfather was among the murderees, as she mentions in passing, but she seems rather cheerful about it, all things considered. Like I said, goofy family.

As far as characterizations go, Richard and Susan are upbeat and the kids are typical sullen teens who grouse about the lack of a phone signal on the island. Is this a red flag? Yeah, sort of, although there were a series of red flags on the trip, including the don’t-go-there warnings of a diner proprietor with an icy disposition, a Svalta welcoming committee of distrusting and borderline-hostile locals and their AirBnB renter Matts Larsen (Eero Milonoff, of the underrated Border), who seems nice enough, but when others say his name filtered through a Swedish accent, it sounds like Mad Slasher, a joke that may or may not be intentional. 

All these tidings of Ominous Portent – is there any other kind of portent? – go ignored, of course, as this family is dead-set on soaking in the relaxing flesheating vibes of Karantan. Jessie hears weird dragging noises coming from behind the mirror in her bedroom, and sure enough, we get glimpses of Matts spying on her like a total horny perv. At night, the locals don their bizarre Karantan costumes and hover outside the rental with torches and drums, presenting Richard and Susan with a dead animal, which, is that hostility or just Their Ways? Meanwhile, we cut to a detective (Ville Virtanen) investigating the brutal slashing of the aforementioned chilly diner proprietor. Hmm. Interesting. Is this a hint or a red herring? Don’t answer that! NO SPOILERS, gov!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Let’s see, Get Away… Get Over It, Get On With It, Get Going, Get Outta Here, Get a Job, Get a Life, Get Out – there it is! Get Out! But really, it’s a Shaun of the Deadified version of Midsommar.

Performance Worth Watching: Bea, a standup comic and BAFTA winner for TV series This Way Up, exhibits on-point comic chemistry and timing with Frost, and they’re a lot of fun to watch together.

Memorable Dialogue: A no-context Jessie quote: “Your waffles are dry as f—!”

Sex and Skin: Nah, not really.

Our Take: Between Get Away and Rebel Ridge, 2024 was the year of the ripping Iron Maiden needle-drop. Tossing the greatest heavy metal band in the history of music a few quid in royalties always endears one to a film, as their galloping rhythms and air-raid-siren vocals inevitably liven up any proceeding, in this case a third-act slaughterama boasting equal amounts of laughs and splattery kills. To that point, the movie was just fine, a somewhat meandering, flimsy-thin plot fueled by the curiousness of its protagonists, whose motive for doing All This In The First Place is a mystery, although Haars and Frost nurture enough of a lighthearted, lightheaded tone that you just go with it, you know, as in these people are just semi-delightful weirdos! And Bea is exquisite as the most delightful of said weirdos.

Frost’s script is winkingly funny and has no shortage of one-liners, especially down that final bloody stretch. That and the spirited performances by the four core cast members just barely keep the film afloat during the aimless dillydally of its first hour or so. Perhaps it shouldn’t be said that Frost blams us upside the noggin with a mighty twist, but the journalist in me says such things need reporting. Comedy-wise, it’s not too far from the Shaun of the Dead hey-this-is-a-zombie-movie reveal, but comparatively watery, being heavy on the spoof (again, you can’t hang with a group of odd Swedes without feeling the heft of Florence Pugh’s flower dress from Midsommar) and light on the originality. But when you’re too busy laughing to care much about heady critical overtures, and the movie calls it a day after a crisp 86 minutes, there really isn’t much to complain about.

Our Call: Get Away is just sorta-dumb fun, and it doesn’t intend to be anything more than that. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.