Review of Eden Lake (2008) by Mark H — 25 Mar 2010

As an indictment of British yob culture, Eden Lake is much more competent than the similar later release, Harry Brown. Both starred Skins alumnus Jack O'Connell, but they're otherwise pretty distinct in approach. Where Daniel Barber portrayed violence as a means to an end, writer and director James Watkins holds it as a powerful but nauseating facet of life. Our hapless middle-class protagonists Steve and Jenny are always on the wrong end of said violence, stuck in a once idyllic and now nightmarish forest getaway.

Michael Fassbender doesn't have much time to make an impression as Steve, who exacerbates the couple's situation by about a hundredfold by trying to repair his wounded pride after an early encounter with the film's devilish young antagonists. Nevertheless, he is reliably excellent with the role, and likewise, Kelly Reilly quickly dispenses with the glamour and dignity of previous roles for an all-screaming, all-limping turn as Jenny.

Casting actors of a known calibre in the leads pays off here, allowing audiences to take the horror seriously. Elsewhere, Jack O'Connell isn't very distinct from any of his other notable roles as Chief Pikey, Brett. However, there is a palpable air of violent charisma about him that makes him a formidable screen presence throughout. I only wish the same could be said of Thomas Turgoose, who still looks far too cuddly and dopey to be anything other than the overstated plot turn that centres on his character towards the end of the film.

What Watkins has crafted from these performances is an ultra-violent social horror, utilising old tropes like the barren woodland and narrow-minded community in order to do some real fear-mongering about "the youth of today". The promotion and exaggeration of that fear is hardly distinct from the chav-sploitation angle of Harry Brown, minus any kind of cathartic vengeance, but it does work extremely well in frightening its audience. By grounding the horror in the form of real people instead of inhuman slashers or the paranormal, it proves taut, scary and gruesome.

It probes its antagonists further than Barber did, with a couple of brief but memorable scenes suggesting a troubled relationship between Brett and his dad, as well as ultimately foregrounding the notion that adults enable yob culture. Eden Lake is no This Is England, and although its grasp doesn't exceed its reach for social commentary, it remains an effective and troubling horror film that stands head and shoulders above most of the genre's output.