Movie Review: Bone Lake

bone lake movie review — Bleecker Street

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Bone Lake isn’t quite as erotic as the trailer suggests, but there’s plenty of eye candy and gore to keep us entertained.

Wannabe novelist Diego (Marco Pigossi) and his editor girlfriend Sage (Maddie Hasson), arrive at an isolated lakeside home for a romantic weekend. Diego is secretly planning to propose during their stay, but the couple don’t seem to be on the same page. Sage repeatedly rebuffs Diego’s attempts to initiate intimacy, preferring to pleasure herself in the bathtub with a shower nozzle.

They soon face an unexpected complication. In a Barbarian-style twist, another couple arrives at the home. The house has apparently been double booked. Will (Alex Roe), a smug jock, and his smokin’ hot girlfriend, Cin (Andra Nechita), claim that they’ve also booked the vacation house for the weekend.

The couples decide to share the home. Plenty of social awkwardness ensues, reminiscent of the character interactions in Speak No Evil. Cin and Will repeatedly manipulate Sage and Diego. It’s obvious early on that they are up to something. Diego is tempted to sleep with Cin, and what straight man wouldn’t be?

Sage tries to hide her attraction to Will, but it’s pretty obvious as well. She admits that being the sole breadwinner in her relationship (after Diego quit his teaching job to focus solely on his novel) has caused her to lose physical desire for her boyfriend. That’s the closest this movie comes to having an insight into relationships and gender dynamics.

I don’t want to give away too much here, but it takes Diego and Sage a long time to catch on that their new “friends” are dangerous. An intricate game is being played in which victims must prove something to survive, kind of like the tests in the Saw films, although nobody ends up in a reverse bear trap here.

Along with the films I’ve mentioned before, Bone Lake is also influenced by lurid ’90s erotic thrillers. This subgenre has made a comeback in recent years. Bone Lake is no Basic Instinct, but its lurid storyline, and a brutally violent over the top ending, fit perfectly with the thrillers that were popular during that time period.

Bone Lake has simple writing and shallow characters, but that’s hardly a flaw in a movie of this kind. Pretentiousness is a pet peeve of mine, and Bone Lake never makes the mistake of pretending to be anything more than a titillating thriller. I wish it was even more sexy and violent, but maybe that’s just me being greedy.

If you’re wondering, this movie is nowhere near as disturbing or depressing as Speak No Evil (the original version, not the soft sellout American remake). Bone Lake has an irreverent, almost cartoonish tone. It looks like a movie that was tons of fun to make. Luckily for us, it’s also fun to watch.