Eden Lake

So in my Spooky Empire Weekend report, I mentioned that RESURRECTION COUNTY was my favorite horror film in a good long while. Well, it’s been replaced by EDEN LAKE. I don’t know what kind of release this got in its home country of England, but here in the U.S., it’s yet another example of a great horror film barely getting a theatrical release, while the crap plays on 3000 screens.

 

The premise is simple: A couple go on a camping trip, and encounter some very, very bad teenagers. (In RESURRECTION COUNTY, a pair of couples go on a camping trip, and encounter some very, very bad rednecks. My filmgoing preferences are clear.) EDEN LAKE takes the time to create likable main characters and to give the tension time to percolate–at first, the kids are more obnoxious than dangerous–but once things get out of hand, the movie just never stops, stampeding from one “They’re so screwed!” situation to the next.

 

I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say that it’s the best example of stomach-knotting, palms sweating, wife-getting-pissed-off-because-I-may-not-have-sufficiently-described-the-movie-beforehand intensity that I’ve seen in a good long while. I did have one major problem with it, but I can’t really call it a flaw, nor can I discuss it without spoilers, so I’ll just leave it a mystery…