Eden Lake
Deliverance with chavs instead of rednecks. That just about sums up Eden Lake, a suspenseful and exceptionally disturbing Brit horror flick from My Little Eye director James Watkins. City couple Steve (Michael Fassbender) and Jenny (Kelly Reilly) go on a romantic holiday to a picturesque beauty spot, only to be menaced by a gang of thuggish teenagers. If only they had listened to their GPS system (“At the first opportunity, turn around”).
There is no doubt that Watkins has hit a raw nerve. In places, the film is all too believable, especially given recent headlines. But is this a serious attempt to address a national problem or merely a much better made video nasty? Certainly, in places, Eden Lake recalls the look and feel of video nasties like I Spit on your Grave. Never heard of it? Then don’t ask. No, really. I mean it.
Performances are all good, especially from the young cast playing the teenagers. The screenplay does a good job of gradually cranking up the suspense and creating a genuine feeling of unease. In fact, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, this is a very well crafted piece of horror cinema.
Which also means, obviously, strong 18 certificate stuff, jam packed with gruesome violence, some very, very nasty torture scenes (which in fairness keep much of the worst offscreen), and lots of very strong language. However, from a moral/spiritual perspective, my problem with Eden Lake isn’t so much that it’s a really, really horrid film (which is why they call them horror films, in case you were wondering), but that it’s dangerously close to political propaganda for the hang ‘em and flog ‘em brigade.
Frankly, I am suspicious of any film that attempts to capitalise on a “fear-of-the-underclass”. This crass subtext could have been avoided if the couple being terrorised weren’t yuppie city dwellers. But I’ll get off this point before I feel the need to slip into self-righteous cliché and say I know lots of very nice working class people.
The message – blame the parents – is hammered home with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. As I said earlier, recent news headlines about stabbings, hoodies, and so on make this subject matter hugely inflammatory. Bringing problems like this to people’s attention through shock tactics is sometimes a valid course of action, but I can’t help wondering what the point was in this particular case. There are no solutions offered, so all the film really does is affirm to Daily Mail readers that they are right about chavvy, feral kids, without looking at the spiritual perspectives or offering any kind of redemptive ideas. To be fair, one doesn’t necessarily want happy endings in horror films (and this one ends, appropriately, in about as feel-bad fashion as possible), but along the way, the screenplay could have hinted at reasons for the children’s behaviour beyond the often true but frankly too simplistic “it’s the parents fault” argument.
For instance, to take two tragic real life cases: the death of James Bulger in the UK, and the Columbine massacre in the US, I think the killers were probably demon possessed, as there was evidence of occult involvement. Eden Lake would have been more interesting if these spiritual dimensions weren’t ignored. Instead, it’s just a really unpleasant, if very well made, horror film with pretences at a social conscience.
Simon Dillon, September 2008.
