Nicole TanFor close to 90 minutes, Eden Lake, which is supposed to be one of the “most anticipated horror films” of 2009, turned out to be revolting with more gore than horror.
With the intent of proposing to his girlfriend, Steve (Michael Fassbender, “300”) takes his girlfriend Jenny (Kelly Reilly, “Pride & Prejudice”, “Mrs Henderson Presents”) on a weekend getaway to a beautiful countryside lake. While there, they encounter a group of teenagers who wrecks havoc and steals their car. Steve confronts them and this kick-starts the chained sequence of brutal, sadistic actions and gory violence – putting Steve and Jenny in the ultimate fight to save their lives.
“Eden Lake was inspired by the idea that there’s a horror movie being played out on our streets, seemingly every day”, explained director James Watkins, in his directorial debut. From Watkins’ perspective, everyone is confused about children and young people in the world today. While many think of children as innocent beings who need to be protected from the horrors of the ‘real’ world, children are sometimes the ones who become the demons in the ‘real’ world.
It is these two conflicting views of children that led Watkins to make Eden Lake as he felt that these views held for a great hellish horror thriller.
It was nightmarish too for the audience when the teenagers began to hunt Steve and Jenny down after Steve accidentally killed the gang leader Brett’s dog. The dog’s death was probably significant in its allusion to the execution of Brett’s own childhood innocence.
*Spoiler alert*
4 guys and 1 girl VS Steve and Jenny; the way the teenagers tortured both Steve and Jenny made you wonder if they were still those innocent beings who needed adult’s protection, since they are capable of inflicting such brutal, sadistic actions.
For Jenny, it is during her escape that she gets caught up in her own mercilessness as well.
After Steve’s death, she now has a vengeance of her own to save her life and bring justice upon the teenagers who caused Steve’s death. She eventually ends up killing one gang member by stabbing him and running a vehicle over another.
At the end, Jenny reaches her ‘sanctuary’ in the form of the town and meets the parents of teenagers who at first help her out when they realise she’s in trouble. Later on though, the parents end up killing her for causing the deaths of those two teenagers as none of them believe that any of their children are knife-welding demons who inflicted all that pain on Jenny. To them, their children are still innocent beings who need to be protected.
The theme of the exploration of tensions between two conflicting views of children is indeed an interesting topic to showcase in a movie. Unfortunately, it wasn’t brought out too clearly, because the movie seem to be a jumble of gory scenes put together to hinder Steve and Jenny’s escape and ultimately, leading to their untimely deaths.
Furthermore, the theme that Watkins chose is lost in the bloody mess, literally, in this movie and the gore just leaves you feeling revolted at your seat.
Saving grace in Eden Lake
What makes the movie bearable though, is the convincing portrayal of all the characters by the cast. Kelly Reilly does a great job as Jenny, showing us, in her transformation from a carefree primary school teacher to a merciless, revengeful girlfriend; as did Michael Fassbender as Steve, in the way he portrayed a man’s pride and the strength one can have even in the last moments before death claims him.
Kudos ought to be given to the teen actors as well, as Watkins didn’t want to cast polite stage-school kids. Instead, he found his actors in an acting workshop for disadvantaged kids because he wanted the teenagers to have that rough edge and portray it in their characters.
For a movie that was hailed “one of the most provocative and terrifying thrillers of the year” by Empire, Eden Lake seemed to be more of a gory film fest depicting a view of how sadistic teenagers in our world can get rather than a provocative thriller that leaves you at the edge of your seat.
UrbanWire gives Eden Lake 2 out of 5 stars.
Movie details
Release date: Jan 15
Language: English
Rating: TBA
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Timing: approximately 90 mins
Starring: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Jack O’Connell, Thomas Turgoose
Directed by: James Watkins
(Pictures courtesy of Festive Films)