In a movie that isn’t nearly as sexy as its marketing, but still is sort of sexy, Bone Lake is about two couples who find they have both booked the same ridiculously large VRBO, decide to share the place, and end up sort of trying to seduce each other. Oh, and it’s a horror movie.
Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi, Alex Roe, and Andra Nechita star in this seductive thriller in which director Mercedes Bryce Morgan, working from a screenplay by Joshua Friedlander, keeps you guessing as to where things are headed or even what type of horror movie it will become. The violent opening scene offers clues, but Morgan then slows things down and largely gives us an erotic thriller (or romantic drama?) involving bathtub masturbation, undressing, and seduction.
If that sounds sexy, it is, but there’s not nearly as much sex or nudity as you’d expect from a movie that proudly inserted its “R” rating into the middle of its title to sell the film. Sex sells, but Bone Lake can’t quite outswim the feeling that it’s a lot more pedestrian than it wants to admit. The cast, most notably Hasson, is good given the material at hand, and there’s enough sexual tension between couples that you do wonder just how far each individual will go, but it plays like a less believable version of “Love Island” at times. Bone Lakes hints at scandal but is unwilling to commit.
When shit finally hits in the fan in the third act, Bone Lake finds its groove and delivers a satisfyingly violent climax. The “big reveal” isn’t nearly as sensational as you’d hope, somewhat predictable even, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.
Still, I wish Morgan had leaned more into the trashiness the marketing promised and drawn what makes the third act so good earlier into the story. There isn’t anything bone-breaking about Bone Lake, so in the absence of uniqueness you might as well go bold in other ways. Bone Lake runs dry in that regard.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.
