Sunday 11 July 2010

Eden Lake (2008)


Directed by James Watkins, the very nasty British thriller Eden Lake (2008) has a good solid premise: the contemporary fear - justified or not? - of “feral” teenagers. In the movie, of course, such fears are justified: the focus is on a couple (Kelly Reilly and Michael Fassbender) who are at first irritated and inconvenienced and then brutally terrorised by a group of teenagers while on holiday in the English countryside. Ruthlessly exploiting our dread of the kind of reprisals that simply confronting people about a noisy ghetto-blaster or an unruly dog might bring upon us, the film starts strongly. But a descent into hysteria and torture-porn gore sink it by the end.

2 comments:

  1. I hate these kind of movies alex.... I prefer the less graphic "girl in distress" thriller, such as CHARADE and WAIT UNTIL DARK

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  2. Yes. I also have a soft spot for some of the early 1990s thrilers such as PACIFIC HEIGHTS and THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE. But torture-porn: no!

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