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Eden Lake
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Wikipedia article
'Eden Lake' is a 2008 British horror thriller film written and directed by James Watkins and starring Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender and Jack O'Connell.
The film was nominated for the Empire Award for Best British Film. It is among a group of roughly contemporaneous films that deal with concerns over "Broken Britain" and a fear of "hoodies". Some of the close up scenes were filmed at Frensham Small Pond.
Plot
Nursery school teacher Jenny Greengrass and her boyfriend Steve Taylor journey to a remote lake in the wooded English countryside. Steve has visited the spot before, and remembers it as an open area, but since his visit the land has been bought up by a development company. Despite Keep Out signs, they proceed to the lakeside, where they meet Adam, a young boy gathering insects.
As Steve and Jenny relax beside the lake, the peaceful setting is disrupted by a gang of rowdy teenagers, who have ridden their bicycles to a spot within a few metres of the young couple. Steve asks them to keep the noise down, but is met with abuse, and one boy accuses Steve of ogling his girlfriend. The next morning Steve and Jenny find their food supplies infested with insects, and their car tire damaged by a bottle left behind by the teens.
Driving into town for breakfast, Steve spots a house with bikes outside that he thinks belong to the teens. When no one answers the door, Steve enters the house and proceeds to snoop around. But on the return of Jon, the surly homeowner, Steve is obliged to make his escape from an upstairs window.
Back at the lake, Steve goes scuba diving while Jenny sleeps on the shore. Steve has been planning to propose, and is starting a story about finding the ring in the lake when he discovers that the bag with their car keys, phone and wallet is missing; their car is also gone. Returning to town on foot, they avoid collision with their own car, driven recklessly through the woods by the gang's psychopathic leader, Brett.
Finding the gang in the woods after nightfall, Steve demands the return of his belongings, only to be pounced by the knife-wielding teens. In the scuffle, Brett's rottweiler Bonnie is mortally knifed, provoking Brett into a maniacal rage. The couple grab the keys and drive off, but the gang throws stones at them, causing Steve to crash the car. With Steve trapped, Jenny is forced to run for help.
At daybreak, Jenny sees Steve tied to a rock with barbed wire. Brett orders each reluctant teen to torture him. When Paige, a female gang member, records Steve's torture on her phone, the gang realize they have no choice but to kill Steve.
Jenny acts as a decoy and the gang give chase, while Steve buys time to free himself. Jenny evades the gang and finds Steve, but is unable to nurse his fatal wounds. She finds the engagement ring, and Steve proposes to her. Jenny runs off to find help but accidentally steps on a large spike and her scream catches the gang's attention.
Steve dies from his injuries. Jenny runs into Adam and thinks he will help her but he ends up texting the gang their location. They tie Jenny, with Steve's body, to a pile of wood. Brett forces Adam to light the bonfire while Paige films. Jenny is able to escape, and the gang burn Adam to death in retaliation. Jenny continues to evade the gang, killing gang member Cooper who was actually attempting to help her.
After finding the body, Brett is thrown into further rage and beats Harry, another gang member, to death. Paige runs away in fear. Jenny reaches a road and is picked up by a driver who is looking for his brother Ricky, another gang member. When the driver exits the van to talk with Ricky and fellow gang member Mark, Jenny panics and steals the van, speeds off, and runs over Paige while making her way back to town.
Jenny makes it to town, crashes into a fence at a large backyard party, and collapses. After awaking and finding herself being comforted by an unknown woman and her husband Jon, she realizes she is in Brett's house. Jenny is led to the bathroom after saying that she feels sick, and Jon notices Reeces van on his lawn before one of the parents receives a call informing him of the dead gang members, who are the children of the adults at the house.
A commotion begins in the house and the bathroom door is kicked open as Jenny is confronted by Brett, his father Jon, and the other party guests. Brett has convinced the adults that Jenny and Steve sadistically murdered the gang members and accuses Jenny of stealing the van. Jenny begs Jon to call the police and then tries ineffectually to attack him with a razor she found in the bathroom, but Jon quickly subdues her. Jon tells Brett to go upstairs, then takes Jenny back into the bathroom with two other men. Brett shuts the door of his room, blocking out her screams. He deletes the videos of the gang's crimes from Paige's phone, puts on Steve's sunglasses, and stares blankly into a mirror.
Cast
Production
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, 80% of 28 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "A brutal and effective British hoodie-horror that, despite the clichs, stays on the right side of scary."
Dennis Harvey reviewed the film for 'Variety' and said that it was "an effectively harrowing Brit thriller-cum-horror pic," comparing it to 'Last House on the Left' and 'Lord of the Flies'. 'The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw drew parallels with 'Deliverance', 'Straw Dogs' and 'Blue Remembered Hills', and stated that "this looks to me like the best British horror film in years: nasty, scary and tight as a drum," concluding that the film was "exceptionally well made, ruthlessly extreme, relentlessly upsetting."
Other critics, however, have savaged the film, denouncing it as an incitement to class prejudice against working class people in Britain. 'The Sun' condemned the film's "nasty suggestion that all working-class people are thugs" while 'The Daily Telegraph' concluded that "this ugly witless film expresses fear and loathing of ordinary English people". Owen Jones, in his book 'Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class' cites the film at length as an example of media demonisation of proletarian youth via the "Chav" stereotype. He comments, "Here was a film arguing that the middle classes could no longer live alongside the quasi-bestial lower orders."
'Eden Lake' has been linked with other films that deal with concerns over "Broken Britain" and a fear of "hoodies," including 'Harry Brown', 'The Disappeared', 'Summer Scars', 'Outlaw', 'The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael', 'Cherry Tree Lane' and 'Heartless'.
See also
* Cinema of the United Kingdom
* 'Mathil Mel Poonai ', a 2013 Tamil language thriller that bears several similarities to Eden Lake.
* 'NH10', a Hindi movie loosely draws its plot from the film adapted to an Indian context.
References
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