Eden Lake

Saw Eden Lake, an ugly and cruel horror film. The plot follows a couple of yuppies as they go camping at a back-woods lake. Their idyllic holiday is interrupted by sulky, sullen local teenagers who ogle the lady and sneer at the man. At one point the couple goes to a diner and complain about the teens to a waitress who immediately becomes defensive. On the back of the Welcome to Lake Eden sign is graffiti reading "Fuck off yuppie cunts!" This class and generational warfare is the heart of the film and the reason I call it ugly.

We are supposed to understand that the suffering of the yuppies is punishment for the callous way in which they breeze into the back yards and into the literal homes of the rural folk, daring to take offence when they aren't respectfully welcomed. That the antagonists are (unbelievably evil) children is (I think) sort of the point of this film. The next generation learns from the cruelties of the old, the evil compounds and festers, etc. The woman is a kindergarten teacher and on the ride to the lake the radio is constantly murmuring about children and education. The future of children is on this film's mind and I feel there's a real point to be made here but horror really isn't the genre to do it in.

Horror, especially this Haneke-inspired cinema of cruelty, is really a genre best suited for creating anger, frustration, for polarizing thinking and for agitation. The corruption of innocence and the cruelty of children is a real thing and it really sucks but it inspires despair more than anger for me. Trying to work myself into a rage just seems counterproductive and retrograde. I'm now more in apt to condemn than to help anyone.

Anyway the whole message of the film is slathered under a thick, divisive layer of glorious class conflict. It's such nonsense. I hated the yuppies for interfering and not just leaving well enough alone (they approach the teens often, snapping impotent rebukes at them) and later on for just being pathetic (oh your hoodie is caught on a tree branch? Better tug at it for a minute instead of unhooking it in a second.) I hated the film for trying to make me identify with them. The film makes small-town poor people out to be unanimously evil, trashy, and physically unattractive to boot. The yuppies it makes out to be useless and suffering twits. This film is petty and small-minded, dealing in shock value and ideas that are not explored so much as exploited.

That said, it clearly upset and troubled me. I obviously felt some strong feelings. Maybe it's doing something right then, but watching this is like wearing wet underwear. Just increasingly unpleasant and uncomfortable. You can tell where the film is going after an hour and what are supposed to be terrible gut-punches are just hassle-y impositions.