Eden Lake

Eden Lake

Director: James Watkins
Starring: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Jack O’Connell
Released: September 5

Words by Ed Andrews

The reactionary, right-wing tabloid agenda has found an outlet in Eden Lake. It’s here that Marks & Spencer catalogue couple Steve and Jenny (Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly) head off for a romantic weekend in the countryside, only to be taunted by a gang of loutish youths. After a scuffle which results in the gang’s dog being stabbed, they’re soon fleeing for their lives as the coked-up yobs hunt them through the woods with murder on their minds.

While the resulting torture and gore is itself unpleasant, the most sickening aspect of Eden Lake is writer/director James Watkins’ obvious pathological hatred for ‘chav scum’. From the off, every lower income person that the nauseating, middle-class couple encounter is coarse, aggressive and immoral. The single mother shown belting her kids while out binge drinking is just one textbook example in this cinematic equivalent of a Daily Mail op-ed.

Indeed, the vicious gang of kids ticks every box on the poisonous tabloid’s long shitlist of hatred; they habitually spit, swear, take drugs, play loud ‘urban’ music and, of course, carry knives. It seems that the film’s central message is that the working classes are a bunch of vile scumbags who are just one step away from lynching decent, law-abiding tax-payers.

But prejudices aside, for a mechanical horror film, it’s actually rather well executed. Watkins has a knack for creating a chilling sense of peril and Jack O’Connell is exceptional as the gang’s sadistic leader Brett – at one point bullying the other members into mutilating a stricken Steve with utterly convincing menace. Thomas Turgoose makes a brief appearance in a familiar This is England guise, but is overshadowed by an imperilled Kelly Reilly clawing her way through the undergrowth in various states of agony.

As a slice of survival horror, it’s both frightening and disturbing, but the nasty, bigoted agenda of Watkins is ultimately far more unsettling.

Ed Andrews

Anticipation:

People getting killed in the woods. How original.

Enjoyment:

A terrifying if sour experience.

In Retrospect:

A hateful perpetuation of prejudice.