Eden Lake is one of those films where you need to get up halfway through to make a cup of tea just to remind yourself that what you’re watching isn’t real – although it may as well be. It cleverly echoes all of those child crime stories that stick in your mind weeks after seeing them headlining the news and plays on the British middle class’ fears of kids hanging on street corners.
So the story goes, a loved-up couple travel to a secluded lake for a romantic weekend when a gang of kids turn up with their Rottweiler and start playing loud music and being a nuisance. From there the story takes a darker turn.
Unlike so many other dark thrillers where you find yourself screaming at the screen ‘JUST KICK IT IN THE FACE’, Eden Lake leaves you with no such frustration. In almost, if not every, instance the characters do exactly what any well-wishing movie watcher would tell them to do, but it rarely pays off.
The film also benefits from a quality star cast led by Michael Fassbender and Jack O’Connell, although they weren’t quite as famous when Eden Lake was released. O’Connell, most famous for his role as Cook in Skins, is at his very best playing the villain – a chav with a cruel depravity akin to Game of Thrones’ Ramsay Bolton. Not to forget that Kelly Reilly, who has since played alongside Robert Downey Jr. in the Sherlock Holmes films, plays a fantastically strong, but credible female lead.
And finally it’s British and British horror is the best, although I am biased.
My rating: 9/10
Image sourced from Annie Mole / Creative Commons Attribution
Creepy Critic 