Film Forum and Reviews

Emotional Dichotomy may not be an essential ingredient in films, but it is a not to be an overlooked spice in the recipe. It is usually reserved for the drama genre but when it surfaces in action, adventure and horror films it the story becomes personalized; we identify more easily with the character and what was going to be a simple evening’s entertainment becomes an adventure in human nature that will stay with us for a long time.

British film maker James Watkins skillfully blends dichotomy and detailed realism to present a compelling tale in Eden Lake. He gets the most out of a heretofore unknown cast who turn in journeyman performances, not the least of which is Kelly Reilly, Jenny, in her first major film debut.

Even as we witness incredibly offensive acts of senseless brutality we are drawn again and again to the conflicted emotions of our heroine/protagonist as she struggles with an inner pain more gruesome than the tortures and indignities inflicted on her and her fiancé.

Eden Lake starts slow, almost glacier-like and comes close to ennui as the characters are developed, Jenny an easy going nursery school teacher and her fiancé Steve played by Michael Fassbender, easy going on the surface, but we soon see irritation just under the skin. In one of few failures in this work, we do not see that irritation as claerly as we should. As they encounter minor social skirmishes initially it is Steve who is most prone to reaction and retaliation while Jenny is, arguably, a bit too ready to let things go.

They escape from the city for a camping holiday in scenery that is somehow more reminiscent of British Columbia’s rain forest than central Britain. They’re holiday is quickly tarnished by a nasty run in with some local thugs. We get a taste of what Watkins has in store for us with one, short but meaningful series of shots: Steve is humiliated by a band of extremely hostile teens. The close up of his face registers anger and fear but powerlessness as well, and a bit too subtly we see the seed of the horror to come. Immediately after he tells Jenny “I’m not going to be driven off by 12 year olds.” Which is exactly what has just happened.

But make no mistake, this is a horror film. It is human, malignant, horror. It is all the more frightening by the absence of aliens, body snatching spores, life sucking plants or mutant viruses. These are children turned reptilian beats against everyday adults ill equipped to defend themselves and made more powerless by the fact they are up against mere children.

In one scene of savagery, the boys take turns carving into Steve with knives and box cutters. It is Lord of the Flies and Deliverance on steroids, cruel and senseless. Watkins’ unplugged realism enhances the effect to make it bone chillingly gruesome. The youngest child is virtually forced to perform this grotesque ritual. His fear feeds our own, we hope he won’t but fear his death should he not. Where Tarantino might have drawn this out, Watkins delivers with precision, the chaos of the edits enhancing the tension. When the boy does cut, it lands in a completely unexpected place, one we rarely see violated in film. The result is far more chilling, more crude more invasive.

It becomes a cat and mouse game, paced skillfully as Jenny escapes, seeks refuge and is caught again, and again. But instead of becoming repetitive, the sequences build suspense as each time new hope, dimmer and dimmer they may be, we become as involved emotionally with Jenny as we are with the circumstances to which she is being subjected.

We see a slow transformation in her. The shell of the nurturing nursery school teacher dissolves under cruelty and continued pursuit. Her inner turmoil, her struggle to fight against her base animal instincts is as Herculean as her fight to keep breathing in and out. She is stripped her teaching, nurturing instincts and reduced to the same primitive animalism as her tormentors.

And it is here that Reilly emotes beautifully. Without one word of dialogue we not only fear for her life, but we are riven by this final debasement. She suffers more than the child the first time, but the next, after being reduced to something unfit for rats, covered in blood , mud, excrement and rotting garbage, wounded, bleeding and burned, she goes about the task with steely determination and the barest hint of satisfaction.

She has become, like them, a killer.

Be warned, the ending may disappoint. It is very disturbing, troubling morally and something of an insult in itself. But, in retrospect it could not really end any other way. The film would be lessened with any other alternative. But then we should be prepared to be disturbed by a horror film and disappointed when we are not.

With Eden Lake, be prepared to be disturbed, deeply disturbed.
And after the plot line has been completed and action exhausted, the final, closing scene, without one word of dialogue is the most disturbing of all.

Ten stars