Even the Griswolds never had a vacation like this one.

Between this and There’s Something In The Barn, there’s an emerging subgenre of Scandinavian comedy horror that involves an English-speaking family blundering about the place and getting on the wrong side of local custom. Actually, you could probably add Midsommar to that list too, if you’re willing to embrace it as a very, very black comedy. Anyway, Get Away sets itself up as your typical tourist meat-grinder as the Smith family arrive for their Airbnb getaway on a remote Scandinavian island, replete with eerie locals and cryptic traditions. And as you’d expect, this family is one on the cusp of dysfunction, hoping to rebond in the middle of nowhere. But this 2024 British comedy-horror—sometimes known as Svalta—has more than a little subversion up its sleeve, getting darker, funnier, and gorier than you might be expecting.

The Smith family is led by Richard (Nick Frost) and Susan (Aisling Bea), with Sam (Sebastian Croft) and Jessie (Maisie Ayres) completing the group. They arrive as a seemingly ordinary family hoping to reconnect. However, the island’s preparations for the ominous Festival of Karantan set an uneasy tone as suspicions about the true nature of their unwilling and unwelcoming hosts gradually build.

Nick Frost’s performance as Richard straddles the line between comedic befuddlement and terrifying pragmatism, while Aisling Bea shines as the near-sociopathic planner, her cheery exterior masking a chilling inner efficiency. The children, too, aren’t spared from this twisted vacation package, and their unravelling is as hilarious as it is disturbing.

What makes Get Away stand out isn’t just the inversion of the tourist-as-victim trope—it’s the way it keeps the audience guessing about who’s really in control and what’s really going on. The locals, while creepy, are more than just boogeymen themselves, and there’s the constant teasing of the nearby escape of a notorious serial killer. The Festival of Karantan holds its own dark secrets, and by the final act, the hunters and hunted become indistinguishable in a nightmarish free-for-all drenched in gore and gallows humour.

Get Away may not be quite what the brochure promised, but by the end its message is clear: holiday fun is what you make of it, and you’ll get as much out of your holiday as you’re willing to stick into it.