Corporate retirement opens with a bucket of blood. Not a tasteful touch on a white wall. A bucket. Eight minutes in, someone is dead, the soundtrack is strutting, and I know this workplace skipped orientation and went straight to the exit interview.
I enjoy a movie that tells me what it’s about before it makes me feel comfortable.
Director Aaron Fisher, who wrote the film with Kerri Lee Romeo, traps the executives of Immaculate Pond Technologies in a secluded luxury retreat. Ginger Hayes, played by Odeya Rush, is the only person who doesn’t work for the company. Her boyfriend Cliff told her they were going together and forgot to mention the matching uniforms, forced bonding and co-workers. The weekend was already a crime before the guns came out.
The business directory is bleeding
The classic character title cards are a clever introduction to such a large set. Each executive arrives with a name, position and personality that can be understood before counting begins. It’s like someone combined grindhouse casting with LinkedIn.
These headlines also expose the problem beneath the company. Everyone has their place in the hierarchy. Everyone knows who signs the checks, who controls the technology, who manages the money, and who will probably report the murders to human resources after the weekend.
Next, retreat guides Amber and Lola, played by Zión Moreno and Sasha Lane, introduce the Seven Doors. The exercises promise spiritual enlightenment. What they deliver is poison, bloodshed, and an increasingly desperate hunt for the materials needed to create an antidote.
Poison is a hell of a motivator.
Maybe leave
I understand that horror films depend on questionable decisions made by people. Without them, half of the genre would end after someone hears a noise in the basement and immediately switches to another state.
But maybe you’ll leave after the first attempt to kill the group.
Corporate retirement doesn’t give its characters much time to consider this option. The first murder arrives before the film has properly settled into its seat, and the violence moves the 89-minute running time forward. There’s always another gateway, another company grievance, or another employee who discovers that the retreat’s cancellation policy is unusually strict.
This speed helps the comedy. It is less successful in creating suspense. Once the film establishes that anyone can die at any time, several later confrontations become waiting rooms for the next effect. The blood is coming. Fear sometimes gets stuck in traffic.
Alan Ruck leads the meeting
Alan Ruck plays Arthur Scott, the fallen founder of Immaculate Pond Technologies. Arthur took every wounded impulse of a billionaire, wrapped it in spiritual language, and transformed it into a leadership philosophy.
Ruck never asks for sympathy. Arthur believes he has been betrayed, which is enough for him to consider revenge a required professional development course. He delivers threats with the confidence of a man who has never been told that a meeting could have been an email.
Ginger works because she has no place in Arthur’s corporate mythology. His abnormal psychological history gives him a way to examine it while everyone still responds to him as his former employer. Rush brings welcome resistance to a room full of people trained to obey the person with the most power.
Lane and Moreno have different fun. Amber and Lola deliver instructions, threats, and occasional cruelty with the lively energy of resort employees determined to maintain scheduled activities. Several people have died, but the retreat still has a route.
The soundtrack is one of the film’s best employees. It arrives on time, understands the mission, and contains scenes that might have sank under exposition about poison, spiritual bridges, and old workplace grudges.
The opening music gives the first burst of violence a playful swagger. Later clues continue to steer the film away from utter misery, even as the retreat becomes uglier and uglier. Composer Anna Drubich understands that it can’t sound like a funeral for 89 minutes straight. The film wants its bloodshed to hurt, but it also wants the audience to have a little fun watching several executives discover that their job titles have no survival value.
This contrast is where Corporate retirement is the most comfortable. The music keeps a smile close to the surface. Practical gore keeps wiping it away.
Practical gore with benefits
Special makeup effects designer Gary J. Tunnicliffe adds weight to the violence. Fisher said that most of the blood and gore was created practically, with the film’s most violent moments being done without visual effects. It shows. Bodies bend, split, leak and are generally no longer eligible for the company health plan.
The effects have texture. They occupy the same space as the actors, and the performers can respond to something more compelling than a marker waiting to become blood later. The film does a much better job of showing the damage than preparing us for it, but the damage is impressive.
There’s also enough variation to keep the shrinkage from turning into a long red blur. Fisher knows the public has come to see these exercises go wrong. He doesn’t hold back when it comes time to demonstrate exactly how wrong he is.
Nobody gets promoted
Corporate satire is broad, but corporate culture has never been known for its subtlety. Arthur demands loyalty from employees he considers disposable. Leaders talk about teamwork after spending their careers competing for authority. Even the promise of retirement enlightenment sounds like something created by a consultant who charges by the syllable.
Poison transforms this culture into a survival mechanism. Cooperation is mandatory, but everyone in the room has been trained to protect their position first. Arthur doesn’t need to teach them selfishness. All he needs to do is add a delay.
Some characters never become much more than their titles. The introductions make the group easy to follow, but they also reveal how thin some of them are. When these characters die, the practical consequences leave a stronger impression than the loss.
This limits the satire. A company can treat workers like interchangeable parts, but a film must give us enough humanity to feel the cruelty of this exchange. Corporate retirement sometimes I cross a name off the organization chart before I have learned far beyond the department.
Corporate retirement arrived on digital platforms on July 10 and is now available to rent or purchase through Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, DirecTV, Google Play and other major services. Directed by Aaron Fisher, the film stars Alan Ruck, Odeya Rush, Sasha Lane, Ashton Sanders, Benjamin Norris, Tyler Alvarez, Zión Moreno, Ellen Toland, Kirby Johnson and Rosanna Arquette.
Final exam
Corporate retirement knows exactly how ridiculous a corporate bloodbath should be. It has a strong opening, a great soundtrack, nasty practical effects, and a performance from Alan Ruck fueled by enough wounded ego to keep the lights on at the Estate.
The satire could be deeper and several characters disappeared before becoming people. The film still moves forward with confidence and an understanding that the best corporate horror comes from very little change. The company already considers everyone disposable. Arthur is just more honest about it.
3.5 out of 5
Corporate retirement is messy, nasty and often funny. Participation may be mandatory, but survival is apparently based on performance.
The film is now available on demand on major digital platforms.
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