Synopsis
A man on the edge has nothing to lose.
A man takes three co-workers hostage while working overtime on Thanksgiving weekend. He has no demands.
1988 Directed by George Mihalka
A man takes three co-workers hostage while working overtime on Thanksgiving weekend. He has no demands.
Another Thanksgiving horror that doesn’t really have anything to do with Thanksgiving! It’s just supposed to be set over the Thanksgiving holiday.
David Warner takes 3 co-workers hostage and one of them is Michael Ironside, who from the plot description I assumed was going to be the hostage taker and I think it would have been more exciting had he been. The real kicker here is that David Warner has no specific reason for taking them hostage and his ultimate motive is never really explained. It kind of indicates he became tired of being a “good guy” and wanted to do something “bad”, but he still manages to be a pretty damn nice criminal.
Ultimately, this is just a super…
George Mihalka's Hostile Takeover keeps popping up on lists of Thanksgiving horror films so I decided to give it a gander. Turns out it's not much of a Thanksgiving film (I don't think Thanksgiving is specifically mentioned once and only seems to come up in the written synopsis) and it's really not a horror flick either, unless you consider spending most of a 90-minute runtime in an incredibly dreary office setting waiting for something to happen to be horrific (which I guess in its way kinda is).
David Warner plays Eugene Brackin, an office worker who shows up to the job one day with a gun and calmly takes his three coworkers hostage, offering no explanation or even any real…
Thanksgiving-adjacent horror(?) from George Mihalka, best known for directing a different holiday-themed Canadian horror movie. Great performances from a great cast, including Michael Ironside, David Warner, Kate Vernon and John Vernon. Disturbing and mysterious in a way that is hard to qualify, halfway between a canned TV-movie and like a Raoul Ruiz movie or something. A hidden gem.
kinda mindblowing how much hallucinatory horror movie weirdness is crammed into a movie that takes place entirely in a drab, pathetic office.
Bartleby the Scrivener goes postal. A dark and disorienting single-location trapped environment fiasco wherein a troubled pencil-pusher with frump hair takes his co-workers hostage at closing time while quoting TS Eliot. Emotions occur. The action gets going right away, and it's way artier than the schlocky poster suggests, heavy on the psychological aspect, sardonically funny and suspenseful, multicolored mood lighting amid trippy dream sequences from all the characters' minds. There's a clever, hidden corporate double meaning to the title. Obscure Michael Ironside thrillers are an underappreciated treasure trove of the genre (Cross Country and Deadly Surveillance being two other examples off the top of my head).
What I signed up for - Crazy hostage taker terrorizes an office, horrific acts ensue.
What I got - A low budget Canadian psychological drama about co-worker's minds deteriorating after being taken hostage.
Hostile Takeover turned out a lot better than it had any right being, especially given director George Mihalka's very very uneven resume. The last act is filled with enough hallucinogenic dream sequences you'll forgive it for never really giving David Warner any kind of motivation for boxing his office mates up in their building with a gun. Maybe it's better that his reasons remain mysterious?
Also Canadian film and television royalty Jayne Eastwood does a backflip out a window and I mean what else do you really need in a movie?
“What a fucking waste.”
The movie summarizing itself so succinctly. My Bloody Valentine director George Mihalka takes a stab at the worst office party ever hosted by David Warner. His co-workers are hostages in a demand-less siege. You’d expect this to amount to something more substantial than it does, but the movie only hints at something interesting. Characters are too one-note to fully justify its claustrophobic setting and 100-minute runtime. Warner does give his performance a lot, and Michael Ironside plays a good asshole, but he only really shines when he becomes even more unhinged than the man holding him hostage. This all reminds me of The Alpha Incident but without the dark, brain-destroying resolution that makes that movie satisfying.…
Nothing like a hostage situation on Turkey day! 🦃 Gobble Gobble 🦃
So David Warner takes over an office building while holding a few of his co-workers (Michael Ironside, Kate Vernon, and Jayne Eastwood) hostage in this little low-key Canadian thriller. All with no demands and a mounting police presence. The surrealistic fantasy scenes were a nice touch, along with most notably featuring the weight of a top-notch cast of actors. Overall Hostile Takeover isn't that great nor bad, it has its moments of situational tension, acting, and action. However at times the dialog and writing can be quite terrible.
Still a unique and somewhat odd movie, one that's fitting as a late night cable-style watch. 🦃
It’s Thanksgiving week in the United States. That means I’ve got some Thanksgiving horror films to watch, beginning with this little-known office-based thriller from the director of the original My Bloody Valentine and Eternal Evil.
The story follows a small office working overtime on Thanksgiving weekend. Soon, the plucky coworkers find themselves trapped inside the building, locked in by one of their coworkers, who has seemingly gone mad. As cops on the outside scramble to figure out the motives behind the hostage situation, things get weirder for the hostages inside.
Hostile Takeover (aka The Devastator or Office Party) plays a bit like that hostage scene in Robocop, mixed with Die Hard (this was released the same year as Die Hard)…
I came for David Warner and Michael Ironside. I stayed for the quirky, claustrophobic story.
And... I wish I had left long before it was over. The interesting start and intrigue became a draggy mess with a truly disappointing ending. I guess it’s no surprise that this David Warner/Michael Ironside collab isn’t more well known.
Day 2 of Thanks-Thrilling month. A Thanksgiving related movie (usually horror) for through the month of November
Hostile Takeover AKA Devastator (on Prime)
Man takes hostage his local late shift workers in an office building during Thanksgiving weekend. Throughout the night loaylties are formed, tensions are grown, and sacrfices are made all leading to a hallucinatory conclusion.
States it's a horror movie but it's one of those yeah it'd suck to be in that situation but there are far worse experiences a person can have. I didn't really like any of the characters so spending the whole movie doing nothing but seeing them interact was mind numbing. And Thanksgiving is not really a factor. Might as well have been any random late night.
Would not recommend.