Patrik Eklund adapts Mats Strandberg’s cutthroat The Conference into a splendid addition to the “Worksploitation” canon. You’ll detect shades of Christopher Smith’s Severance, turning a corny work retreat into a bloody outing with coworkers. The tenets of Worksploitation are honored through corporate skewerings that indulge a capitalist nightmare with satire too close for comfort, from shady legislative practices to selfish power-trippers. Work sucks, but Workspolitation horror movies like The Conference take gnarly swings at frustrating workplace cultures by offering pitch-black catharsis in a slasher package.
The film follows Swedish municipal employees attending a team-building conference before groundbreaking their massive shopping mall project. It’s part planning, part celebration—daytime meetings morph into boozing and hot tubbing by night. Unfortunately for the attendees, their getaway is anything but business as usual. A masked maniac dressed as the mascot for their new Kolarängen property starts slaughtering retreat staff and participants without telling who will get the ax next.
As a woodland slasher, The Conference is violently sharp and fiercely shot. Simon Rudholm’s crisp cinematography accentuates the surrounding forests that sequester the area for miles, framing the killer’s brutality with emphasis. Eklund co-writes a screenplay with Thomas Moldestad that doesn’t overcomplicate the scenario beyond dodgy business practices that possibly attract a madman hellbent on revenge, helping the story lunge forward without hesitation. Pacing is steady, tension is palpable, and it’s not long before we’re plunged into chaos.
Worksploitation filmmakers sometimes exaggerate business misdeeds to a cartoonish and weaker regard, but The Conference hits a relevant nerve. Its players bring out the worst in their caricatures of office stereotypes that recall our own water cooler nemeses. Adam Lundgren makes our skin crawl as a project manager who takes credit for everyone else’s work. Maria Sid as boss Ingela is always one sentence away from calling her employees “family” in that gross “we’ll exploit your loyalty” way. Coming from a nine-to-fiver with a day job outside writing, Eklund nails the cubicle hardships and rotten corporate inhumanity that hides behind paltry rewards like Casual Friday. Questions about forged documents and farmers pushed off their land are nasty enough to “justify” the slasher structure, but not by overblowing the evilness behind the boardroom doors.
The Conference also delivers graphic gore, from inside industrial kitchens to outdoor punji stick pits. Standard “Horror 101” deathblows utilize puncture wounds and stabbed necks, but gold-star special effects steal the show. We love a slasher that goes above and beyond, from the squeamish sounds of a scalp being stitched back onto a victim’s head to a proper decapitation or two. Eklund composes deaths to Swedish pop hits and indulges the campiness of his killer’s party-crasher timing, including one shot where a hammock rester is not only slain, but his beer can gets stabbed too. Visual storytelling sure is poetic, sometimes.
That said, The Conference still ends up meandering toward the end. By launching into its slasher dread so quickly, the ensuing trickle of illegal activities leading to the shopping mall’s construction feels oddly out of sync. Some humor also struggles to land even for those who’ve endured the worst corporate nonsense, making the cheapest jokes because they’re available. These smaller misfires in an otherwise adequately constructed white-collar slasher are still relevant, as the passing lulls make themselves apparent. The ratio of horror to humor becomes that all-important balancing act, and Eklund wobbles occasionally despite taking confident steps forward.
Consider The Conference one of those Netflix surprises that hits the platform to be happily discovered by organic means. Patrik Eklund flashes no fear as a horror filmmaker who trusts his killer and gets right to the good stuff. It’s a meaner Worksploitation entry, up there with something like the awesomely aggressive Mayhem, taking aim at unchecked capitalist mindsets worth their bloody consequences. The Conference is one of the better slashers released this year if you’re in the mood to watch liars and brown-nosers get hacked, skewered and brutalized to bits, pulling overtime at the right moments.
Director: Patrik Eklund
Writer: Patrik Eklund, Thomas Moldestad
Starring: Adam Lundgren, Eva Melander, Maria Sid
Release Date: October 13, 2023
Matt Donato is a Los Angeles-based film critic currently published on SlashFilm, Fangoria, Bloody Disgusting, and anywhere else he’s allowed to spread the gospel of Demon Wind. He is also a member of the Hollywood Critics Association. Definitely don’t feed him after midnight.