You know, even in today's quarantine situation, no part of me ever wants to go to a cabin with my friends for an isolated vacation. I've seen too many movies where a bunch of guy pals go up north and end up all dead or worse.

The Retreat is the next one that reminds me that I should stay right where I am, in my wonderful movie room basement, cataloging my Mexican VHS horror favorites and wondering whether or not I should even go upstairs.

Gus and Adam weren't as smart. They went up to the Adirondack High Peaks of Upstate New York and ended up running into a monster. But now, Gus finds himself all by himself, going crazy and convinced that he's being hunted by the Wendigo.

Written and directed by Bruce Wemple, whose Monstrous was about a woman discovering that a trip to - you guessed it - the Adirondack High Peaks of Upstate New York wasn't such a good idea because one of her friends is possessed by a beast much like Bigfoot. Grant Schumacher, who plays Gus in this movie, was also in that as Jamie, and Dylan Grum, who is Adam here, played Squatch in Monstrous.

Here's some further advice: if you are going backpacking in the woods, do not take any hallucinogenic drugs. Have we learned nothing from the slasher films of our youth?

The crazy thing is that there may be more than one Wendigo out here in the woods. And beyond just killing people, they like to make them go crazy first. They are also usually cannibals that have tasted the flesh of their fellow man in the forest, if I know my Native American lore (or just remember when Wolverine fought one).

The Retreat is available on demand and on DVD - all hail physical media, look for this at a WalMart near you! - from Uncork'd Entertainment, who were nice enough to send us a review copy.

Sure, this movie tries to have an artsy, plot-twisty feel. But the two realities that are presented in the movie are easy enough to understand and I thought it was interesting to see both sides of it. It certainly held my attention, and given most movies these days I give it a big plus for that reason alone! The creature designs were interesting enough (albeit low budget, but that isn't always terrible!) I think this movie would even be worth a rewatch, but I don't think it's my new favorite by any means. 5.5(teetering on 6)/10

It is not the scariest movie at all but it did have a few moments that definitely did creep me out. Not a low budget, and not a low quality movie. The story kept me guessing until the very end and the acting was very very good as well. If you like movies that are horror mixed with mystery this is exactly what you get in this film.