Clearly, the horror season is upon us (with so much more to come this month), and one of the ickier entries, at least in terms of appropriateness, is director Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s (Fixation) Bone Lake, the story of two couples who end up at the same rented mansion for romantic weekends (a mix-up with lodging apps, apparently). Rather than one simply leaving or flipping a coin to see who stays, the couples decide to share the massive space, which of course leads to all sorts of issues.
The couple we arrive with are Sage (Maddie Hasson, Malignant) and would-be writer Diego (Marco Pigossi), who have been dating for about three years and recently come to an understanding that he will quit his job and devote his life to writing while she makes all the money. Although she’s putting on a brave face about the new arrangement, Sage is clearly uneasy about it to the point where she doesn’t feel as attracted to him. That is partly why they’ve taken this vacation, in the hopes of lighting a fire under their relationship. Then we have Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita), who look like they stepped out of the doors of a modeling agency and have no issues showing off their affection for each other or their bodies to whomever happens to be in close proximity.
At first, things start off friendly and playful, but soon it becomes clear that Will and Cin have something else in mind, which seems more like aggressive flirting but quickly turns into what appears to be an active attempt to drive a wedge between Sage and Diego. This mysterious yet alluring couple introduce deception, manipulation and outright attempts to seduce the two with a combination of truth and lies, using every piece of information that Sage and Diego provide against them. After seeming fairly harmless for much of the film, the third act of Bone Lake makes it clear that Will and Cin are actively menacing, and things escalate exponentially.
To be fair, the audience won’t be nearly as shocked by Will and Cin’s behavior as Sage and Diego are—they seem a little slow on the uptake about their new friends. Even an incident involving an engagement ring that Diego was going to propose with doesn’t convince them to get the hell out of there, which is probably the moment the film’s credibility started to slip in my eyes. You can’t help but ask yourself with film like this “What would I do?”, and I don’t see a scenario where anyone would stay in that house after the ring event.
Still, I liked the way the nightmare gets slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, worse until you realize this couple is neck deep in actual danger, and the mission goes from leaving safely to actual survival. With a screenplay by Joshua Friedlander, Bone Lake has its moments of genuine tension, fun actors, and a scenario that would only happen in a horror movie, but that’s kind of the point.
The film is now in theaters.
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