From Sweden, with love, The Conference.

I more or less picked this at random when I saw it recommended on my Netflix account. A straightforward horror movie that looked good, so I gave it a shot.

The Conference is about a group of co-workers from a local municipality on a team building retreat at a camp in the woods. They have just completed a major real estate project proposal to build a mall and construction is about to start. Lina has recently returned from a leave of absence and during a meeting to finalize the paperwork, she notices that the contract has changed since she last saw it and her signature is on it. She never signed this paperwork. She starts asking questions and the politics of the group swing into motion. Some don’t care, some want to know more, and some say everything is fine and it’s time to celebrate their latest success.

While Lina has questions, someone else shows up with an ax to grind and starts killing the attendees one by one. This leads to a deeper dive into what’s been going on behind the scenes as the group gets smaller and the goal to survive becomes harder to accomplish.

It’s a little bit like watching The Office merged with Friday the 13th which works surprisingly well. I can’t imagine a big budget for this, but every dime can be seen on screen. Nothing about the movie looks cheap. The cast is great, the cinematography is terrific, great sets and the horror gags are largely very good. The one makeup effect that I consider the highlight is when one of the men runs into a wire trap in the woods that gives him a huge gash across his forehead. It looks gross, realistic, and painful. The actor really sells it as he frantically runs around for the remainder of the movie.

This was a nice palate cleanser. Nothing complicated, just a straight-shot plot of corporate subterfuge and revenge. Yeah, it doesn’t do anything new for the genre, but it hits all of the right beats that make for a good horror movie.