Directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan | Written by Joshua Friedlander | 94 min | ▲1/2 | VOD
I don’t like criticizing actors in my reviews. Any time an actor seems uncomfortable in a role, if there’s fault to be found it’s always in the production — with the script, the direction, or the producers for making poor choices. At the end of the day, especially with a low-budget, horror-coded picture, you gotta give a break to the performers.
In those circumstances you sometimes end up having sympathy for actors desperate to make something from an underwritten script that wants to be, maybe, as clever a movie as Bodies Bodies Bodies, but hasn’t given enough meat on the characterizations nor plausibility to its scenario.
Witness Bone Lake, aspiring to be a drama about sexual and relationship mores, with horror in its dark, ridiculous heart, and actors scrambling to connect the dots.
Diego (Brazilian actor Marco Pigossi, playing Mexican for no reason) and Sage (Maddie Hasson, maybe the only one who comes out of this looking good) are a couple who’ve short-term rented a country mansion for the weekend. They’ve been dating for a few months and things seem to be going reasonably well. Diego wants to propose to Sage, even though they are having some trouble between the sheets.
Their weekend escape is crashed by another couple who also rented the same sprawling pile — something to do with different apps duplicating the booking. Will (Alex Roe) and the unlikely named Cinnamon, or Cin (Andra Nechita), are attractive, tall, and shallow, but otherwise seem relatively harmless. They all decide to share the house for the weekend — it’s huge after all.
Before long the new couple are going out of their way to seduce or undermine the other, behaving outrageously then trying to justify their behaviour due to cynicism or insecurity. Our original, more wholesome couple puts up with it a lot longer than anyone in their right mind would. Will and Cin’s manipulation is clear from the start to anyone paying attention, if not their motivations.
Is this supposed to be sexy? It is not. This is just another violent, prudish movie, happy to bury an axe in the head but not share any real sensuality to help ground the story and the relationships. Is it supposed to be darkly funny, or say something thoughtful about honesty in relationships? It does not. These characters never seem like real people, behaving in real ways. They all become annoying within the first 10 minutes.
As the truth of what’s actually going on at Bone Lake is revealed, it’s just so incredibly stupid the movie can only resort to obvious gore mode to bring the final act thrills. Especially frustrating is a script that’s convinced it’s a lot more deep and interesting than it actually is.
On a lean plus side, some of the camera placement and unexpected editing choices help keep things jumping. A finale that plays like a bloody homage to The Graduate is welcome, but none of that rescues the parts of this movie that are an insult to its audience’s intelligence, which is a lot of it.
