If you have ever had to endure the tedium of a corporate retreat, consider yourself lucky. The Conference puts office workers in exactly this kind of scenario, however their team building exercises are much higher stakes than even the most important PowerPoint for Corporate.
Cubicle workers descend on a remote Swedish woods, splitting up two per cabin – glamping, as befits white collar culture. Their task? Basically a big SWOT analysis of a planned shopping mall project rollout, which promises to be a bounty/windfall for a local town, which is nonetheless receiving pockets of opposition. Hell, there are even rumors that IKEA will be the anchor tenant.
Soon, before they’ve even had a chance to munch on stale donuts in the boardroom, two members of the team, Lina and Jonas, are at loggerheads over a land deal signed with a local farmer, for which she can’t recall being a signatory – a few colleagues even gaslight her about it, as she was on mental health sick leave.
When the whole team is ziplining, Lina sneaks away and commandeers Jonas’ laptop, vindicating herself, and finding out he’s crookeder than a Chicago mayor. Amidst the serious intra-office drama, however, there is something more sinister afoot: a figure in a Pinocchio-esque mask skulking about in the woods, dressed like a mascot meant to endear the mall project to local kids.
What really works for The Conference is the disparate and relatable team members – spanning not just personalities, but also ages, ethnicities, and demographics. There’s a blowhard, wallflower, keener, world-weary vet (who’d rather just kick back and enjoy good food and beer), cynical chain-smoker, bootlicker, and of course, a relentlessly positive team lead – basically, archetypes of everyone who works in an office.
Another plus is the sheer creativity of the deaths – conjuring up Final Destination and referencing a few deep cuts from horror films’ past, like Friday the 13th, The Mutilator, Saw, and Zombie Holocaust.
The Conference, despite considerable devotion to character-building, zips along at quite a pace, a considerable achievement. It’s also funny and at times, really gory. The only quibble: the deaths could’ve been more stalky/atmospheric.
***1/2 (out of 5)
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