Starvation Vacation

We were getting a jump on Spooky Season, which runs from September to Halloween in our house. SInce it was the end of August, I picked a horror comedy: Get Away (2024). It starred Nick Frost, but we were also interesting in seeing Aisling Bea, his co-star.

Frost and Bea, with their two teen children, are on vacation, heading to an isolated island in Sweden. In the 1700s, it was quarantined for an epidemic, and the British maintained the quarantine even after the disease had run its course, and the islanders resorted to cannibalism. Our vacationers are hoping to see the ceremony the islanders hold every year to commemorate this event.

At the ferry, they try to get something to eat at a diner, and meet only hostility. When they mention they are going to the island, everyone tells them to stay away. But they have ferry tickets and a rented house, so off they go. 

At the island, they meet oddly dressed villagers who also warn them to leave. But Eero Milinof, their landlord, comes to tell them not to worry about them, he'll bring them around. But, although he's friendly enough, he's a bit creepy too.

I guess you can see where this is going (even before human sacrifice is brought up), but it might surprise you. But there is definitely a blood bath for the third act.

It's a good premise and pretty well delivered. Frost and Bea are good as the clueless and entitled tourists, and Sebastian Croft and Maisey Ayres make good annoying teenagers. Croft is sullen and withdrawn, and also vegetarian. Ayres is a little too into Milinof's creepy stares. And this all plays into the third act twist. 

Two complaints, though. One, the premise was decently handled, but not great. There was a touch of the old improv problem - some of the lines and scenes seemed to be made up on the spot, or in early rehearsals, and kept in, due to lack of a better idea, maybe. Or maybe they liked what they came up with. Frost and Bea are that good. 

Two, they didn't make anything of the starvation/cannibalism angle. When they can't get a decent meal at the diner, then discover the house they rented doesn't have the groceries they were expecting, I was waiting for them to get hungry. Well, maybe that's on me.