Meta horror has been tried and tested ever since the smart and knowingly silly Scream (1996) created an entire franchise out of the gimmick. Movies like Cabin in the Woods (2011) and more recently One Cut of the Dead (2017) have offered interesting commentary on the archetypical structure and character work in this saturated microgenre. Bone Lake, from director Mercedes Bryce Morgan, attempts to satirise the slasher genre but is in fact exactly the film it is trying to take down.
★★☆☆☆
Couple in a rut Sage (Maddie Hasson) and writer Diego (Marco Pigossi) arrive at a decadent mansion trying to rekindle their spark. Sage cheated on Diego with her ex-boyfriend right at the start of their relationship and doesn’t seem to be keen on sex with her current partner. Diego has quit his teaching job to focus on writing a novel, though it appears he doesn’t have much literary talent. They both have love for each other but there’s underlying tension, especially since Sage is now the sole financial provider. After an over-the-top gory beginning (spoiler: someone gets an arrow shot through their testicles) which we’re supposed to believe is part of Diego’s book, the film reverts to quite a sub-standard psychological-thriller type romance. An attractive young couple, Cin (Andra Nechita) and Will (Alex Roe), have also booked the mansion for the same weekend (sound familiar?) catalysing a strange, shared experience that gets increasingly out of hand.
For the first hour, some of the situations are fairly engaging and the actors all give it their best shot. Yet no character is fully developed though, and there’s no standout performance in the bunch. The set-up is familiar in an annoyingly winking way, Joshua Friedlander’s screenplay not smart enough to twist the knife and give us the unhinged, kinky story it threatens throughout. There is an underdeveloped emphasis on sex and unrequited desire, but the sex scenes are bland and unmemorable. Thorny commentary on the breakdown of long-term relationships and how sharing your life for so long can produce buried resentments, but the idea is also never developed. The best scene in the film is to do with a proposal that feels genuinely shocking: here is where the drama has to kick off. But the possibility never feels believable, immediately undermining the tension.
There are also quite literally zero scares in the whole film. Cin and Will eventually start acting stranger, but the idea that these were ever normal people isn’t really presented as an option. We are dragged towards a finale that goes way over the top with its gore, but the scenes are horribly lit, and the yucky parts don’t pack the punch or shock value intended.
The direction is serviceable with a few neat tricks but doesn’t stand out as controlled or ambitious. Bone Lake wants to be Speak No Evil (2024) mixed with Barbarian (2022), but it doesn’t have half the bottle of these superior films because it refuses to ground its bloodier aspects with a well-developed story or interesting characters.
The Verdict
A slapdash and cheap attempt at satire that feels dead on arrival.
Words by Oscar Aitchison