Jenny and Steve’s romantic weekend goes sideways (Image: StudioCanal)
What makes a film truly terrifying is personal. It might be gore or ghosts, depending on what gets under your skin, but for some, it’s a British slasher flick where the monsters are hoodie-clad teenagers.
In Eden Lake, a brutal horror film released on Halloween back in 2008, a couple head to a remote lake for what should have been a romantic weekend getaway. Steve (Michael Fassbender) is about to pop the question to his girlfriend, a nursery school teacher called Jenny (Kelly Reilly). Alas, their camping trip is interrupted by a psychopath, as played by Jack O’Connoll, and his group of sadistic youths. Its taut 90-minute runtime packs in so much violence that viewers have sworn off the film and its « pants-wetting terror ».
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Jack O’Connoll leads a pack of sadistic teens in Eden Lake (Image: StudioCanal)
Eden Lake has earned a 76% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes. The review aggregate website summed up critics’ responses to the film as such: « A brutal and effective British hoodie-horror that, despite the clichés, stays on the right side of scary. »
The unassuming film scared the living daylights out of one film journalist who selected it for The Guardian’s « Film that frightened me most » series.
« I had no idea what was coming, » he wrote, adding: « It remains one of the most brutally terrifying experiences in my life. »
« Certain images have remained imprinted in my mind since (if you’re ever in the mood for some prolonged scenes of facial mutilation-by-Stanley-knife, Eden Lake’s your film) and when the credits eventually rolled, I felt like I’d been through 12 rounds with Mike Tyson rather than 90 minutes with Michael Fassbender. »
Empire echoed this sentiment in their review, noting: « You don’t watch it, you survive it. A battering experience, and the hardest Brit horror in years. »
« Eden Lake is very much in the business of pant-wetting terror. The discomfort begins early on, wastes no time in spiralling hellishly out of control, and, with its conclusion, treats the viewer with steadfast sadism. »
« You don’t watch it, you survive it. » (Image: StudioCanal)
The film has scarred its share of audience members too. « It’s a good movie but it’s one and done, » shared one person on Reddit’s horror forum.
« I actually tried to rewatch Eden a few days ago since it was on TV but I got to the scene when they first arrive to the beach and nah, I just don’t want to relive all that again. »
Detractors of the film have found it off-putting for reasons unrelated to horror. Given the villains of the film are working class teens, Eden Lake has been criticised as classist.
Another viewer commented, « I really disliked the role class clearly played – it’s only working class characters that are shown as poor parents. »
Likewise, in his book Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, Owen Jones criticised: « Here was a film arguing that the middle classes could no longer live alongside the quasi-bestial lower orders. »
Eden Lake is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
