Description
Like a bad dream turned worst nightmare, Eden Lake is a “relentlessly tense and immaculately paced” (Twitch Film) horror-thriller about modern youth gone wild. When a young couple goes to a remote wooded lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of local kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize the couple in unimaginable ways, and a weekend outing becomes a bloody battle for survival. Eden Lake is “fierce, thought-provoking … and genuinely shocking” (Time Out London).Amazon.com
British director James Watkins’s directorial debut is an overtly moralistic thriller centering around a couple who are trapped and taunted lakeside by a gang of teenage bullies, led by a boy named Brett (Jack O’Connell). Warning signs to stay out of this camping area abound, in the spirit of myriad camping-trip-gone-awry tales, like the classic Friday the 13th. The challenge, here, is to subvert those warning signs in order to harness some minor sympathy for the alleged victims to be. However, Steve (Michael Fassbender) and Jenny (Kelly Reilly) are too wrapped up in puppy love to turn around, even when their GPS signal advises them to do so. As a gang of wayward kids pick fights with Steve and Kelly, the couple attempts escape… at first. But Steve’s desire for revenge impels him to search for the delinquents’ parents, which becomes the couple’s downfall. A good portion of Eden Lake is devoted to the chase, during which Steve and Kelly look increasingly swampy under caked on layers of blood and mud. These scenes are well done, fast-paced, and here, enacting fear, Kelly Reilly is at her best. But as the film progresses, one sees so many connections between the teens’ violence and the abhorrent behavior of their parents, that Eden Lake leaves no character interpretation up to the viewer. Yes, bad parents usually make bad teens. But a deeper investigation into Brett’s inner mind, or his ability to follow through with torture and the sadistic control he exhibits over his gang, would result in less obvious, and possibly more interesting explanations for criminal action. Though many Dimension Extreme films are cutting edge in the horror genre (see Inside), Eden Lake is not one of them. –Trinie Dalton
I was really psyched about watching this movie. All of the positive reviews on here plus an extremely vocal Blockbuster employee really got me pumped for this British horror flick.
Unfortunatly, the movie didn’t really work out that well for me.
I am a fan of horror films and like any normal fan of the genre, I embrace twists and turns and new ideas…but, Eden Lake, despite it’s gorgeously filmed directing and cinematography, left me feeling anything but happy.
Having just seen the French thriller THEM, I was not really looking forward to the child-killers angle. I feel like it’s a little TOO real and disturbing for cinema. On the flipside of that though, it works because it IS such a visceral and controversial topic. No one wants to think that there children could commit such crimes, but the reality of it is that children, when left to there own devices, can come up with some pretty sick ways to have fun. Eden Lake takes that idea, throws in a gang of young teens, a perky, cute preschool teacher and her attractive fiance and an undeveloped lake property that will soon be a resort and mixes them into a torture flick that DOES entertain…but ultimately lets viewers down.
*****************spoilers below***************************
The gore: There wasn’t a TON of gore as some might have mentioned. I have seen worse. The most effective scenes would be shots of a very realistic looking GAPING stab wound that is pouring blood. It looked very real and very nasty.
The torture of the main character is bad, but I have seen worse. There is also some light animal related abuse along with a fairly violent dog death. Some people have said the death of the dog was not bad…but it was actually one of the worst dog deaths I have seen on a film and it was actually pretty sad. The dog wasn’t an evil, menacing dog…it was merely the main bullies pet and had a slight barking issue…when the dog ended up stabbed it was an accident and there is some dog crying and yelping that lasts for a bit and we see a few shots of it lying on the ground breating slowly with it’s eyes open as the boy yells “she’s dying!” over and over again…which was very dramatic and upsetting to me, being an animal lover with dogs of my own. So, that said, fair warning to any people who can’t watch dogs or pets killed on film. This wouldn’t be a good one to see because of that scene.
Overall: While I understand the familiarity of killing off every single main character, I felt robbed at the end of this film. Jenny went through so much hell, she was tortured more mentally than anyone would want to go through. Having to kill children to survive was something she had to do to fight and live…but, the ending of this film LITERALLY left me in tears. The raw emotional pull on your heart as you realize what is about to happen to her, after everything she had been through, was devestating. I actually stood up and paced in front of my tv, shaking my head in disbelief. I was highly upset. The injustice of the ending along with the survival of the “HEAD BULLY” (who I just wanted to get killed the whole time!!!) was enough for me to want to never see this film again as long as I live.
Very upsetting, very disturbing and WAY too much of an emotional rollercoaster for my taste. I dont want to watch a horror movie that makes me want to cry and scream at my tv about injustice and things not being fair. I also don’t want to come off as ignorant by playing the “i wish it had a happy ending” route. What horror movie TRULY has a happy ending? People have been slashed and killed, so is there really going to be a HAPPY ending? Doesn’t make much sense. But, I do like a film that at least has a SURVIVOR. No survivor usually equals a waste of time to me in the long run.
So, this film just didn’t work for me. I never want to see it again and can only really recommend it to people who can handle truly unhappy endings.
Rating: 2 / 5
I can’t remember what kind of Ray-Ban Aviators were worn in the film: Ray-Ban Aviator RB-3025 L0205 Gold / Green Sunglasses Size 58, Ray Ban Small Aviator 3044 Sunglasses – orb3044L0207, or RAY BAN 3044 AVIAT SMMET L0207 GOLD AVIATOR SUNGLASSES 52mm? After suffering through to the ending, and reflecting on what I’d just watched, I was able to appreciate this film as another update of The Virgin Spring. No ace microwaving of heads at the end, though.
Rating: 3 / 5
EDEN LAKE was a great movie. It was very tense and it played out how real people would actually go about a similar situation, in my opinion. But, the biggest flaw was the ending. I don’t want to give it away, but the ending really just pissed me off. I can see how the director thought it was a good idea, but it was the ONLY thing that was bad about this movie. If they had gone the route I assumed they would go, I would have loved it. I recommend this movie to all. I would have given it a 5 star rating but i truly hated the seemingly rushed and completely unsatisfying ending. Some will say the ending was dark and disturbing. I thought it was cheap and boring. It is a haunting ending, but I wish it was in a different movie.
Rating: 3 / 5
SPOILERS: I was really looking forward to seeing this and for about 80 minutes I was really kept on the edge of my seat with suspense. And then came one of the most disappointing endings I have ever seen. I said to myself out loud, “What?!” when the credits began to roll and that never happens. If this had been an American film, I guarantee that the studio bosses would have demanded a new ending be shot. Most of the time, I disagree with the studio heads and prefer that a filmmaker be allowed to create his own vision. However in this case, I would gladly have welcomed a shot of studio interference. Films such as The Last House on the Left, Eye for an Eye and The Brave One had tragedies in them where a character lost a loved one due to a violent crime. However what made those films good was that when all the said and done, the audience received their pay-off because the bad guys got what was coming to them. A sense of justice was served whether or not you agreed with the way it was handled. Well, there is no final justice in Eden Lake. We see Kelly Reilly’s character put through so much horror yet she doesn’t win out in the end. At one point I got excited because there is a scene where she is covered in dirt and grime and is studying herself in the mirror. Then she takes a piece of shattered glass and wraps it up in a piece of clothing. As we hear one of the gang members speak behind her, she quickly stabs him in the neck and he dies in her arms. I was thinking “okay, now she will turn from a helpless young pre-school teacher into a kick-@ss vigilante extracting her revenge on those who did her wrong.” Not so much unfortunately. She does hit the lone-female of the gang with a car which was the second and last justifying moment. There were 4 other gang members who got away with everything they did to this innocent couple. The films message seemed to be that when there are bad parents, you will breed bad kids. And perhaps some will argue that they are “just kids” as one of the parents cried at the end after a distressing phone call. Kids or not, if you have to defend yourself from a murdering child with no conscience than so be it. These types of kids typically grow into adults that get off on hurting others and the crimes only get worse from there. What is the right thing to do? Spend tax dollars by putting them away or having them go through all kinds of therapy? Or is it easier to just put them out of their misery so we can spare the lives of more innocent people. I won’t answer that question, but I will say that I wanted Kelly Reilly’s character to kill the kids who were trying to kill her and who murdered her fiance. The main gang member in this was the worst as he was usually encouraging the others to inflict torture when they really didn’t want to. I would have been content if he got what was coming to him and rest of the gang members lived. However standing around and letting something happen without trying to stop it makes them just as bad in my eyes. There is no way with any rationale that I can recommend this film to someone. We live in a world where so many bad guys come out on top and the innocent are punished. Do we really want to see a film where the same thing happens. Do not watch this if you want something feel-good or if injustice will really bother you. I will end with a quote that has stuck with me from Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing. It seems fitting for this film. “Children are at the mercy of their parents, and parents for the most part are a very bad lot.”
Rating: 2 / 5
This was my response to a person who wrote a negative review of the movie because it didn’t have a happy ending……I actually cried when it finished but for reasons as I have explained in my review response….
(It DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS)
But that is why the movie is so heart wrenchingly sad. The ending, so frustrating, I was screaming in anguish and anger along with the female lead. The kids that did meet their demise (apart from the young boy not involved in the gang) were all in the process of changing face upon the realisation of their wrongdoing. Kelly’s character may have realised this when she stabbed the little boy in the neck, otherwise she would not have sobbed and cradled him in her arms as he died. The young girl was leaving the gang, coming to her senses, and she was hit by the car. Kelly’s character would not have known that the girl had changed her mind, this makes all deaths even more tragic. You can see the angst in the childrens eyes as they are forced to do unspeakable acts. Apart from the instigator and the other older boy, the kids are subjected to the worst case of peer pressue any child could face. The most frightening thing is that similar situations have, and continue to occur around the world. This is why the movie is brilliant and heartbreaking at the same time….. I’m still disturbed by it two days after watching it.
Rating: 5 / 5