LogFAQs > #976527049

21. Eden Lake (Amazon Prime)

How about a terrifying horror thriller starring Michael Fassbender in 2008 with a concept that is a lot more terrible to think about than expected?

Eden Lake is about a couple that goes to vacation by a lake, but they end up being terrorized by a group of pre-teens who seem to have no problem seriously hurting them.

With a concept like that, it seems a bit ridiculous, right? A group of freaking children trying to kill you? You're an adult. You can handle it. Well, it turns out you can't when they are fully prepared to do the whole killing thing. In what starts as children just being little assholes to a couple on a vacation slowly turns into them clearly wanting to cause them all serious harm. And, of course, our protagonists don't really want to hurt actual children, but slowly but surely, they start to realize they'll have no choice if they want to survive.

What makes Eden Lake so good is that it gives us villains that present a serious moral quandary. How many times do you watch a horror movie and go "Well okay, but they shouldn't hurt the monster?" Not often! But in this one, we're slowly being driven to that point just like our protagonists. Where they slowly have more and more contempt for these little shit children and you have to start thinking about when the hell it's time to fight back, and how far to go.

It doesn't even stop there! It continues to present different situations where you're questioning how bad you should be feeling over it. It's crazy that there's so many layers in the movie.

And to wrap all of this up, it has one of the best conclusions to a horror movie. It takes all of the feelings we've felt and then throws you into another situation that lets us all come to yet another realization with our protagonists. And then we question what we'd do in that situation too. And it's just so good. I won't get into exactly how it makes me feel, because that probably spoils it a little too much.

But if you're looking for something that is going to constantly twist at your morals while delivering an outstanding thriller, Eden Lake is worth your watch. Just an outstanding film I've been meaning to re-watch for a while. Go out of your way to watch it!

Rating: 9/10