From a screenplay by Nick Frost and directed by Steffen Haars, “Get Away” (2025) is a horror-comedy that stars Frost and Aisling Bea as the Smiths—a family of four going on a holiday to the island of Svalta in Sweden, with special interest on watching the Karantan, the eight-hour-long play arranged by the locals on the island. However, their arrival is met with open hostility by the locals, and strange events ensue on the island.
Get Away (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis
Who are the Smiths?
We are introduced to the very British family, The Smiths: father Richard (Nick Frost), mother Susan (Aisling Bea), sister Jessie (Maisie Ayres), and brother Sam (Sebastian Croft). The four members seem to be the quintessential British family of the modern age, with the teenagers especially coming off as bratty or disinterested in comparison to their parents.
They would stop at a restaurant near the coast, where they wanted to buy a ticket for the ferry to travel to the island. From the beginning, we could understand that something was off regarding the residents, and once the restaurateur and his wife learn about their plan to go to the island, they are shocked and warn them to not go there as it is “forbidden” to go to the island during Karantan. A sentiment that is shared by the ferry conductor as well, while the ferry passengers would look at them with dead eyes, which would be creeping them out.
How are the Smiths welcomed on the Island?
As the Smiths disembark from the ferry, they are surprised to find all the inhabitants of the island standing at the shore to welcome them. That turns out to not be the case. Led by the Svaltan elder Klara (Anitta Suikkari), the inhabitants of the island threaten them to leave, as outsiders aren’t allowed on the island. It’s contrasted by Susan’s stubbornness to stay. Her ancestor being one of the British soldiers responsible for the massacre that the Karantan play had been based on apparently ignited her curiosity to come to the island.
The stalemate between the islanders and the Smiths comes to a halt when the owner of the B&B they had rented, Mats Larsson (Eero Milnoff), finally comes forward and asks the Smiths to come to the house. The interaction between the islanders and Mats clearly hints at a strained relationship—the Karantan Commune clearly hadn’t been asked permission to grant outsiders access to this island, but Mats would execute it anyway.
As the Smiths enter the duplex cottage, the furnishing and the interior of the cottage evoke a cozy vibe, but it’s in sharp contrast to Mats’ demeanor, who, while welcoming, clearly is off-kilter and at times is exhibiting an unhealthy sort of interest towards Jessie. The family wouldn’t be bothered as much to learn that Mats’ mother had been beheaded in that house, but Jessie slowly comes to realize, while taking a bath, that she might be watched. She could hear voices coming from behind the full-length mirror in her room.
The Smiths would again be made to feel unwelcome on the island that night when both Susan and Richard are woken by lights from torches outside their house. They come out to the courtyard to find the islanders gathered there, and they leave the carcass of a raccoon on the doorsteps of their house, much to the chagrin of the Smiths.
This arguably shakes the family, especially Richard. While he exhibits a lot of Nick Frost-laden mannerisms, there are moments, especially when he is trying to comfort Susan the next morning upon learning of her suspicions, that he has seen and done some stuff in the past. While taking a stroll around the island, we would witness the islanders keeping a watch on them. Richard and Susan also see boats from the mainland carrying coffins to the island.
Both Jessie and Sam also would be confronted by unwelcome islanders when they go to have breakfast on the island and are forced to walk out of there. Though both Sam and Jessie, unlike their parents, aren’t averse to snapping back at the villagers, as they walk out, they come across a couple of the Islanders, wearing strange masks, and bringing in the coffin marked “English sailors.” To top off the weirdness, the villagers laugh at the stoically baffled look on both the siblings’ faces.
As both the siblings enter the house, she finds her bed undone, unaware that Mats, wearing her lingerie that had been missing for a couple of hours, had been lying in her bed. But as she sees the undone bed and believes her brother’s nonchalant dismissal of her accusation of him being responsible, she goes in front of the mirror and draws a heart symbol on it, clearly signaling that she knows that Mats is behind the mirror, and she likes provoking it.
What are the true motives of the Svalta community?
For Klara, head of the Svalta community, the Karantan is a ritual that she takes rather seriously, even as their much bloodier tradition of grisly realism regarding the ritual has to be curtailed for obvious reasons. She doesn’t care that Johnan the Dane is missing or that the chief police inspector of the mainland is investigating her on account of the freakish murder of the restaurateurs on the island.
Since it is the last year of her directing the play, she wants to go all out. Reaffirm the tradition by offering up tributes—actual human sacrifices—that once upon a time the residents of Svalta would continue with. However, none of the younger generations would want to go with the plan, even though their eagerness in the past runs counter to their hesitance in the present.
Thus Klara would have to use her trump card—Mats Larsson and her perversion. She is aware of Mats using CCTV cameras attached to her mother’s house and him getting off to watch the guests and family members at their house. She is also aware that Mats uses a secret tunnel from his house to his mother’s to sneak in and out of the house. The only reason why she turned a blind eye to this perversion is because he is a member of the community. But now she has come to collect. She instructs him to drug the guests—he has carte blanche to satisfy his pleasure all he wants—in exchange for him delivering those bodies to the community to feast on them.
Who starts the carnage on the island?
As Karantan begins, Mats hatches his plan—baking biscuits laced with drugs and taking them to the Smiths for a surprise. He is mildly surprised at the Smith family taking a time out and going to the beach. As the Smiths return, they find the biscuits and are rather pleasantly surprised. Later Mats sneaks into the house and finds all the members of the Smith family having lost consciousness.
He finds Jessie in her bed, unconscious, except now the twist reveals itself when we learn that—no, the Smith family is not unconscious. They pretended to eat the biscuit. The Smiths are a family of serial killers, and they have come to what they refer to as “a slaycation.” They begin their slaycation by killing Mats gruesomely and dismembering him.
Who truly are the Smiths?
The conceit of this entire film is that of a British family on vacation revealed to be a family of serial killers colliding against the suspenseful whims of the unique traditions of folk horror. The revelation of the Smiths is hinted at first at the restaurant at the ferry, where a swan is found beheaded by the kids.
The death of the restaurateur and his family had been done by Richard, who clearly executed the deed once he returned for his purse and had a “sauce stain” on his jacket. It also explains some of the killings of the swans on the island itself. Now, all hell breaks loose when the Smiths begin to start killing the islanders at random.
Having completed the Karantan for the final time, Klara wanted to finish off the night in style. Unfortunately, the night would end in style, just not the way she had intended. Both Smith and Susan continue to mow through the horde of villagers, while Sam and Jessie kill the woman at the communications center. However, unknown to them, the detective on the mainland would be informed, and he would requisition a speedboat to get to the island immediately.
Meanwhile, amid the carnage, as the Smiths take a much-needed rest after burning all the dead bodies and creating a big bonfire, Richard has had enough of Sam’s cheek and disrespect throughout and stabs him in the neck. It is then revealed that the Smiths are actually a family of three. Sam had been a hired serial killer, and now Richard’s angry “outburst” at the endeavor could cause a problem later down the line.
Get Away (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
How does the Smiths’ holiday end?
The Smiths’ mostly nonchalant attitude to the violent acts is in sharp contrast to Klara’s dogmatism mixed with hysteria. She still believes that the villagers could overwhelm them, but as Klara and her son enter Mats Larsson’s house, they find a bloody Jessie and immediately shoot her in the chest. She is mildly shocked, though not completely, and as Klara and her son ask about the rest of her family, she constructs a story about Mats having killed them.
Her son goes upstairs to investigate and finds Richard on the bed, groaning in pain. As he moves forward, Richard slashes his neck, though the son lets loose one shot of the shotgun, which blows Richard’s hand off. Klara is unaware that the Smiths had discovered the CCTV setup at Mats’ house and the secret passageway and had been planning to lay low.
Now, however, as the Smiths finally regroup, they realize that their subterfuge isn’t necessary anymore. However, Klara, still angry and determined to kill them, raises a knife only to be shot by the police detective. The detective had mistakenly believed that the island people had been attacking the innocent English tourists, and Smiths’ acting further doubled down on his suspicions. The movie ends with the officer taking the Smiths away on his speedboat, and as they return to the mainland, the Smith family—battered, bruised, bloody, and bleeding, with one of them losing an arm—happy and delirious at a fantastic vacation, highlighting the comedy of watching a toxic family of serial killers getting their marbles off at murdering people.
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