It's been a long while since a film has provoked so much thought in me as this film. It's another British gem too. It's about a couple who go away for a romantic weekend and fall prey to a gang of teens whom they previously confronted for harassing them.
The powerful impact this film has is huge. It is very believable and full of issues applicable to society today. The ending of the film packs a punch like an iron fist of emotions. It was truly very upsetting but thoroughly thought provoking.
It also stars Kelly Reilly, who is a fantastic actress more known for her dramatic period roles, however that gives you an indication of the depth to this film. It's dynamics are more than a simple horror/thriller and in a territory closer in vein to Straightheads.
Even after 2 weeks since viewing it I find myself thinking about how it affected me.
I actually picked this dvd up in a shop the other day and it really looked good reading the blurb on the back but its still a bit pricey at the moment so I put it back on the shelf.
But its definately one that I'll be getting soon.
Judging by your response Daniel,it looks like the kind of film that would give me the heebyjeebies. Kind of...I'm really interested,but....uuuurggh,shudder.
I watched 'Eden Lake' last night and it was ok but not as powerful as I thought it was going to be. 'Wolf Creek' was better I thought.
There are certainly a lot of tense moments in 'Eden Lake' but they are unfortunately diminished by lots of silly moments.
The silliest part was when the guy,having seen where the kids live,walks up to the house,walks round the side,walks into the house by an open side kitchen door as one does,walks up stairs,and then hearing the kids father returning,climbs out of the bedroom window. If that all sounds rather silly and far fetched its because it is.
Later,when the couple are lost in the park at night,they split up and then keep running into each other.
Or they get hold of their car keys from the kids and then run blindly off........right to their car which is well out of sight.
So,I really wanted to like this film but I kept thinking 'this is daft' which is not what you need to be thinking when watching a thriller.
The film reminded me of a cross between 'Mean Creek' & 'Them'
picsou wrote:Thanks Rob, I won't bother downloading this.
You really shouldn't allow yourself to be put off just because I wasn't over impressed. You might really enjoy it?
Its just that with even horror/thrillers,for me there does still need to be a degree of plausability about the film otherwise i just can't take it seriously enough to react to it positively.
By no means is it a bad film.....I just thought it could have been better.
I havn't seen it but I will check out 'The Cottage'.
I'm finding it very hard to agree with your comments rob, particularly in the fact that the couple only split up after he crashes the car and cannot get out of it. She is terrified for the remainder of the film after witnessing her injured partner tied up and stabbed multiple times. It's also night, in an unfamiliar area with the added factor that she is scared out of her mind. They only split up twice in the entire film, once when the car crashes and then secondly when he is too badly injured to run anymore, when she hides him in the undergrowth whilst she tries to get help.
He also only goes upstairs in the house purely because he cannot get out of the house due to the arrival home of the father, who actually arrives home whilst he is downstairs in the front hallway, and that he realises that he's actually in the wrong for entering an empty house. A natural reaction would be to hide and then get out as soon as possible without being noticed, which he does.
Plausability, seems to me, quite evident here. I'm not sure just how much attention you paid to the film, but if I were in that situation, I would be terrified and undoubtedly my rational would be very dimminished. There are key points in the film where the girlfriends actions are very evidently carried out from pure terror and lack of thinking, from a psychological perspective far more realistic than your average horror film where there is a strong headed lead who does everything right. In this film realism was kept to the front of the deck, showing that as humans we make silly mistakes, we suffer from errors of judgement because the situations affects us so greatly our decision making skills are reduced to almost nil.
You may prefer the cottage, not a realistic film, entertaining in a gory foul mouthed way. Eden Lake is the other end of the spectrum, decent acting, a massive questioning of societies moralities and a focus on the state of parenting in the age of generation y. I think that it's more in keeping with a film like Them rather than Mean Creek, which was dire, fat on it's own idea of ingenuity and ultimately pious. Edne Lake leaves you so deeply upset by how it ends, and makes you question how you would have reacted had you been in the position of the parents and the heroine.
You've made me all the more intrigued to see it, Dan.
Plausibility in any kind of creative expression is kind of a moot point, I guess - different people have different levels of need for it. Some of my favourite stories, paintings, films, songs etc use highly implausible scenarios but in doing so still express something authentic, for want of a better word ... I don't need things to be 'as like life as possible', largely because life itself can be hilariously implausible at times.
Ice, you were the one most tender with the rivers.
You, the roof of the waves, layer after layer after layer ...
