Parents' Guide to Corporate Retreat

This bloody thriller plays a little like The Menu, but much dumber, much gorier, and without the gorgeous food; rather, it's lots of arguing between empty-headed characters as the kill count rises. Corporate Retreat makes a point of introducing viewers to all of its characters with title cards that indicate their names and their positions in the company (which is called Immaculate Pond Technologies), as if that meant something. As the movie progresses, they're almost indistinguishable, personality-wise, as petty, selfish, scared, greedy, etc. As characters die, no one seems to care. No one mourns them or is affected in any way by their loss. The Big Bad (Alan Ruck) gives a fairly typical psychopathic villain performance (a far cry from Ralph Fiennes' work in The Menu).

As viewers get to the nauseating sequence (teased on the poster) in which the retreat-goers must dig out their own left eyes with a spoon—which is shown in great detail, over and over again—they're left with a question: If Ruck's character and his lackeys, Amber and Lola, have already achieved transcendence, why are their eyes intact? Clearly the filmmakers didn't put much thought into the mess that is Corporate Retreat. Only Rush, as "final girl" Ginger, who wasn't even supposed to be there that day, adds a bit of spark to the proceedings, but she probably should have retreated when she had the chance.