Whether it’s a disastrous road trip with your family (as in this week’s National Lampoon reboot) or a grown-up holiday nightmare, everybody’s suffered through at least one awful vacation. It is our profound hope that you’ve never endured an ordeal that compares to the experiences of the poor bastards in the following (thankfully fictional) movies.
1. A Perfect Getaway (2009)
Pulp auteur David Twohy is beloved to movie buffs for such tricky, innovative genre delights as Timescape: The Grand Tour and Pitch Black, but this sun-drenched noir is his finest work. Three couples (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez, Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton) cross paths on a Hawaiian vacation, only to conclude that one pair among them are murderous identity thieves who’ve come to the islands in search of their next aliases. (The biggest twist? Hemsworth’s character, Kale, is not operating under an alias.) Structured for maximum suspense and paranoia while holding up perfectly to repeat viewings, and featuring a career-best performance from the charming, versatile Olyphant, this is a lush, clever picture that reminds us of the days when a great B movie was an accomplishment unto itself.
2. Withnail & I (1987)
Everything that is magnificent and marvellous about Bruce Robinson’s cult comedy can be summed up in one panicked line: “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake!” But there’s so much more to the misadventures of Richard E. Grant’s chaotic, drunken Withnail and Paul McGann’s cringing, panicked Marwood (otherwise known as “I”) – and it all has to do with the terror of being repressed, English and aware that the 60s are winding down. Fleeing to Uncle Monty’s home in the country to escape the harsh reality of London seems like a great idea, but of course Uncle Monty’s place has its own dangers, a randy bull and a sinister poacher being the least of them. And even so, this is still the funniest film on this list by a mile.
3. The Descent (2005)
Dragged along on a cave-diving vacation after a devastating loss, traumatized spelunker Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) soon finds herself – and five of her closest friends – trapped in a suffocating nightmare with no way out… and that’s before the cannibalistic cave ghouls make themselves known. The Descent is the kind of horror movie that will freak you out if you watch it during the day with all the lights on – so just imagine how it played for Midnight Madness audiences at TIFF a decade ago. Seriously, I can’t imagine a worse way to spend some leisure time – which is, of course, what makes it perfect for this list.
4. Deliverance (1972)
Almost idyllic in its opening movement, John Boorman’s adaptation of James Dickey’s novel about four city pals who take an ill-advised rafting trip down Georgia’s Cahulawassee River turns into a horror movie so gradually you might not even notice – except that at a certain point, it’s so nightmarish that you can’t avoid what it’s become. Jon Voigt, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty are perfectly cast as light-hearted buddies entirely unprepared for what lies in wait down the river. And while the hairstyles might seem dated four decades later, Deliverance is just as relevant today on civilization, masculinity and brotherhood as it was on the day of its release. Plus: Duelling Banjos is still damn catchy.
5. The Comfort Of Strangers (1990)
In Paul Schrader and Harold Pinter’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s nasty novella casts Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett as a young English couple enjoying each other in Venice. Christopher Walken plays the monologue-prone stranger who invites them to join him and his wife (an exquisitely unreadable Helen Mirren) for an evening of sultry conversation, which of course goes terribly wrong. The late, great John Harkness summed it up perfectly: “If Christopher Walken ever invites you to follow him down a dark alley in Venice, don’t.”
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
