Ticketworthy! - Bone Lake

There is something extra scary about horror movies that feel entirely plausible. Don’t get me wrong, movies like Alien or 28 Days Later are all-time horror classics. There’s just no real fear that you specifically could be trapped on a spaceship with a murderous alien. What makes a horror film like Bone Lake shine is how very possible it is for you to end up in the same situation as the characters, and how it makes you wonder what you might have done differently.

In this case, a couple, Sage (Maddie Hasson) and Diego (Marco Pigossi), book a romantic weekend at a lakeside mansion. To their surprise, they discover that another couple, Cin (Andra Nechita) and Will (Alex Roe), have booked the same house. Unsure how to handle the incredibly awkward situation, the two couples agree to just share the house for the weekend and make the best of it. What follows is a tense weekend of sex, lies, and psychological torture.

Given that the action takes place completely in the mansion and the cast is basically just the two couples, the actors are forced to do a ton of heavy lifting to carry the plot. Fortunately, they are fantastic across the board. Hasson and Pigossi feel like a real couple and their confusion and anxiety does wonders to sell how awkward the whole situation is. Meanwhile, Nechita and Roe are perfectly menacing and off-putting in a way that makes it obvious something isn’t right, but not so over-the-top that it isn’t believable. There isn’t a weak performance amongst them.

The house and lake are also shot gorgeously. It’s clear that director Mercedes Bryce Morgan understood exactly what she needed to do to keep the audience from feeling comfortable, even in the early scenes. There are so many well framed and tight shots, it often makes the film feel claustrophobic even when the characters aren’t in a tight space. Morgan also perfectly uses abrupt cuts and scene changes so it’s really hard to get settled in.

The movie is also funny at times, although that may actually be its biggest flaw. Sometimes it feels like Morgan was setting out to make a horror-comedy or satire, but the jokes are far too sparse to really call it that. What jokes and self-awareness the movie does have don’t elevate the material so much as undermine the tense and serious tone of everything else. It’s a truly odd mix, and I wish the film would just pick a tone and stick to it.

I also wish more work had been done on the plot twists. There are two major twists in the film, and neither really works. The first is so predictable that you should have it figured out pretty much right away. The other is less obvious, but only because it’s unnecessary and a little dumb. It’s really not much of a complaint, but this movie is proud of its twists, so it seems fair to call out that they aren’t very good.

Regardless, the acting quality and stellar cinematography do enough to make Bone Lake yet another excellent entry into this year’s horror catalog. If this is how we’re starting October, I’d say there’s good reason for horror fans to be excited.