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By Robert Scucci
| Published
Whenever I plan a romantic getaway with the Missus, I have a very short list of win conditions. If the bar has an arcade, I’m playing Time Crisis II for an hour. If the hotel doesn’t have a continental breakfast schedule that allows me to sleep in, I’m eating the free soap. And if we’re going to renew our vows or do anything super cute like that, we can’t do it in the remote wilderness where feral teenagers with the home-field advantage think killing is a game. I’ve watched too many movies like Willow Creek (2013), Significant Other (2022), and 2008’s Eden Lake. At least in Backcountry (2014), all they had to run from was a bear, because in Eden Lakethe kids are far more terrifying.
A bear will eat your face because it thinks you’re invading its territory, calm down, and move on with its life. To the best of its knowledge, the bear was just defending itself and had no other choice. The teenagers in Eden Lake will set you on fire after they’ve already killed you so they can film it and show everybody what they’ve done for bragging rights.
Both are horrible outcomes, but at least with the bear you die with dignity.
I Mean, They Were Asking For It
As much as I want to yell at Jenny Greengrass (Kelly Reilly) and Steve Taylor (Michael Fassbender) for taking the stupidest vacation they could possibly take, I have to remind myself that they’re characters living in this movie, which hopefully means they aren’t aware that their situation is a big old trope. I’m willing to forgive them and say they don’t deserve anything that happens to them in Eden Lakeand I’m willing to suspend disbelief because it’s a tried-and-true setup. We have to get them into the woods, or there’s no movie.
So they go to the woods, even though they both seem like inexperienced campers who probably should have rented an RV and parked it at a national park, and do the usual stuff: swimming, smoochies, fumbling with the tent when the sun’s already setting. The usual stuff happens here, and I’m still not really impressed because we’ve seen it all before.
Then we’re introduced to Brett (Jack O’Connell) and the gang of teenagers who are about to make the couple’s life a living hell. These kids are so awful that they make the events of Lord of the Flies look like Gilligan’s Island by comparison. It starts with loud music and a rowdy dog, but before you know it, Jenny and Steve’s car is stolen, their food is trashed, and their camp is destroyed. Not wanting to take matters into their own hands beyond retrieving their belongings and getting the hell out of dodge, they try to leave, but Brett and his goons continue terrorizing them while Paige (Finn Atkins), the only female in the group, films whatever happens on her cell phone.
Kids Will Be Kids
My kids aren’t quite teenagers yet, and hopefully I’m raising them well, because the teenagers in Eden Lake are the stuff of nightmares. Brett is clearly the alpha of the pack, and his menace is strong enough to make everybody bend to his will. It doesn’t matter if he wants them to vandalize property or slit somebody’s throat, they’ll do it if he pushes hard enough. Even more terrifying, anybody who disobeys him faces fatal consequences. When the group is at its most united, Jenny and Steve are no match for them because their only moral code is simple: there will be no consequences for their actions.
Rational adults, even the ones who want to camp in the remote wilderness despite their inexperience, are simply no match for unchecked teenagers who clearly don’t have any meaningful authority figures in their lives. They’re fully formed little humans, but they’ve grown up in conditions that nurtured their more animalistic impulses far more than their human ones. There’s no reasoning with that kind of terror, and Eden Lake leans into this social hierarchy without shame as Jenny and Steve fight for their lives, Steve wondering when he’s supposed to get down on one knee and pull out the engagement ring he’s been hiding.
Eden Lake is far from an easy watch, but it’s a shockingly effective thriller once things start heating up. It’s worth its weight in unease alone thanks to Jenny Greengrass handling herself like a boss and Jack O’Connell channeling some truly psychopathic energy to bring his character to life. If you think you can handle the suspense, which culminates in one of the most upsetting endings this kind of movie could have, Eden Lake is currently streaming free on Tubi.
