Get Away Is a Dour Horror Comedy Saved by its Bonkers Conclusion

Nor can the seemingly dense members of the family miss that they are distinctly unwelcome on the island, despite one of the homes indeed having been made available to rent by one of the residents, who seemingly went against local council wishes to host them here. From the moment that Richard and the others arrive on the island, menacing matriarchal leader Klara (Anitta Suikkari) makes it plain: The residents want them gone, and gone immediately. The locals quickly step up their campaign of rudeness and outright intimidation, and it all begs the question: Why don’t Frost and his family simply get out, while the getting is good? Can they not see the threat of death, staring them in the face?

That unvocalized question hangs in the air over the brisk film’s (only 80-some minutes) first hour, as its biggest hang-up becomes the way its two halves–horror-thriller and comedy–bounce off each other, rather than reading as complementary. On one hand, you have the dour folk horror identity, which works pretty well on its own: The people of the island fall back on tradition and the sort of magical thinking that is passed down in the oral tradition, kept alive for hundreds of years out of deference to a local tragedy so profound that they still all feel it in their bones. This more severe half of Get Away centers the island residents rather than the family, highlighting the way that so many of them have handed over their agency to the town’s elders over the years out of respect to the deep, emotional ties to the place’s history that keep them from abandoning what is clearly a place barely fit for human life in the first place. The way the local residents are cajoled toward reluctant violence actually lends them a degree of sympathy or pity not usually present for antagonists in this sort of setting. I was reminded, perhaps, of the pitiable family of cannibals in Jim Mickle’s excellent version of We Are What We Are.

At the same time, though, when we’re revolving around Richard and his family, Get Away has an entirely different, somewhat incongruous tone of family dramedy. They alternatingly bicker and support each other in a way that feels realistic if out of place, while the sparse comedic punchlines land with such kooky, vulgar effectiveness that they often shock a guffaw out of you because you’ve forgotten that the film you’re watching is ostensibly a comedy on some front. The film will be ominous and sober, considering the veiled threat to the family out in those woods with realistic apprehension, and then it will suddenly break the tension it worked hard to establish with a random blowjob joke out of nowhere. I found myself thinking in these moments that it’s difficult to tell if the average viewer is meant to perceive this as legitimate folk horror, or a parody of it, and that it might have been more effective overall to embrace its legitimately effective (if familiar) psychological thriller elements. The comedy and horror each seem to be undermining each other.

But then: The twist. Get Away’s third act transformation arrives with a sudden flourish, and in the process cleverly recontextualizes everything you’ve seen so far while leading the remaining runtime in a dramatically different direction. The payoff is excellent, and it assists the film in finally landing on a workable horror comedy tone with an absurdist air to it, although again this arrives rather late in the game. The transition to a more action-heavy aesthetic, replete with licensed music, evokes almost an Edgar Wright-like flair, although the direction and cinematography can’t live up to that level. What does really work is the way the family’s dynamic evolves as a result of the twist, becoming captivating and laugh-provoking as we come to understand why some of the previous interactions between them may have read as strange or stilted. Credit here likely belongs to Frost as screenwriter: It takes some time for Get Away to find the tone it eventually lands on, but there’s joy in the audaciousness of Frost’s final statement, freeing up its cast to do their best work in its closing minutes. In particular, the relatively inexperienced Maisie Ayres is a real stand-out, with a coquettish energy that refuses to be intimidated or repressed by the setting. You really want to know what’s going on in the head of that one.

All in all, Get Away becomes surprisingly effective by the time all is said and done, bleakly satirical, bloody and a far cry better than the trite parody of director Steffen Haars other 2024 collaboration with Nick Frost, Krazy House. I wouldn’t have minded spending even more time with these characters following the deployment of its third-act metamorphosis, to more fully appreciate the startling change it brings on, but it’s possible that this also could have read as too much of a good thing. Like a thief in the night, the film startles you with its sudden gusto and then recedes while the shock is still fresh.

Director: Steffen Haars
Writer: Nick Frost
Stars: Nick Frost, Aisling Bea, Maisie Ayres, Sebastian Croft, Anitta Suikkari, Eero Milonoff
Release date: Dec. 6, 2024

Jim Vorel is Paste’s Movies editor and resident genre geek. You can follow him on Twitter or on Bluesky for more film writing.