THN HalloweenFest Day 5: Eden Lake

‘We look after our own round here… ‘

Director: James Watkins

Cast: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Jack O’Connell, Thomas Turgoose, Finn Atkins

Plot: When Steve whisks girlfriend Jenny away for a weekend’s camping he’s hoping for the ultimate romantic break – and to pop the question. But a confrontation with a local kiddy gang over loud music and an uncontrollable dog quickly escalates with violent and bloody consequences.

Every now and then a film comes along that’s so nasty, so uncomfortable and so topical that cinema audiences can’t help but sit up and take note. EDEN LAKE (2008) is one of those films. And it’s a particularly British film that voices not only society’s fears about youth crime, but also class. Jenny and Steve are humus-munching, childless urbanites from a trendy part of London; they drive a fuel-guzzling 4×4 and have all the latest gadgets, including a sat nav voiced by Kylie. Plonk them in a working-class town and watch them patronise, infuriate and judge the locals. Soon they’re all set for camping at the ironically named Eden Lake, where they’re going to meet the locals’ children – and where Jenny’s bleeding heart sensibilities are to be tested to the utmost limit.

And that’s partly what makes EDEN LAKE such an awkward watch. Apart from all the gruesome torture, it forces you to make judgement calls on other people’s lives and sometimes side with characters who aren’t particularly that likeable at all. Who’s at fault here – where do we place the blame? On the “hoodies” surely? Led by psychopathic bully Brett, the chav gang fulfil every Daily Mail nightmare of broken Britain as they steal, spit, drink, swear and fight. Oh and torture and murder of course. But part of me can’t help but think that Steve was maybe…asking for it…(just a little). He’s a lairy lesson in how to be a man, so full of testosterone that he won’t back down from a confrontation when anyone else would probably just move to another beach – one not so full of hormonal spitting teenagers and dog turds.

Jenny however, undergoes a severe reappraisal of her belief systems. And who can blame her? After seeing her husband-to-be tied up with barbed wire and stabbed in the mouth, it’s no wonder she’s lost some of her more Mary Poppin-esque traits and plunges broken glass into the nation’s favourite tearaway, Thomas Turgoose.

It’s this playing about with stereotypes and sympathies that makes EDEN LAKE so effective. Just when you think the film’s going to settle into more familiar and predictable ground, the audience is tested or challenged in some new way. Who can forget that final chilling scene when gang leader Brett is walloped by his father and we suddenly see him as an abused kid? That’s before he pulls Steve’s Ray-Bans out his pocket and poses in front of his bedroom mirror in them, while he listens to Jenny’s screams from downstairs. What’s that expression on his face…is it satisfaction? Guilt? Or the sheer unadulterated delight of nihilism?

Horror Highlights: Jenny steps on a large metal spike while she’s running for her life.  I dare you not to squirm as she removes it by pushing it all the way through her foot and out the other side.

Disgusting Death: Brett pours petrol over a young boy and threatens to necklace him (set him alight while trapped in a car tyre) unless Jenny gives herself up. She thinks about it for a few seconds… and keeps on running. Brett keeps to his word.

Check out the rest of THN’s HalloweenFest here