has anyone seen EDEN LAKE yet?

terrifying hoodie horror or funny games without the meta?

embedding is disabled on that youtube link (i didn't actually intend to embed it anyway)

here's the official site:

http://www.edenlakemovie.co.uk/

heard it's amazing (mark kermode) but gf is too scared to go see w/me

intend to go see it some time this week and I am stoked

I was already deeply suspicious of this after reading that Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian really really thought it was great. Looks like the Daily Mail has made a film. Not even our rural idylls are safe from hoodie horror!

tbh though I'm also just really bored with horror movies.

cozen, come see it with sam and me next week if you can wait that long.

Ned, glad to hear that I'm not the only one for whom the sight of Peter Bradshaw's reviews makes a nasty tasting sputum enter my mouth. I can't go and see horror movies any more because they upset me. Seriously. How pathetic.

And the Daily Mail's review has really put me off. One of the protagonists has a mother who works! Oh noes!

There's a world of pathos in the reply of a boy whom Jenny meets in the woods and asks: 'Where's your mother?' (obviously considering it's safest to assume he has no father).
He answers sadly: 'She's working.'

Also...

t's also willing to say what other films have been too scared or politically correct to mention: the true horrors we fear day to day are not supernatural bogeymen or monsters created by scientists. They're our own youth.

No, to be fair, I know what they mean - I'm terrified by my own youth.

I think it's a good premise for a horror film.

Just because feral youths are most likely not going to kill us does not mean we're not scared of this. No more than we're likely to be killed by a psychopath or whatever you have in other horror films.

You don't have to believe that feral youths are an actual problem or express views in print as a journalist that are prejudiced against the idea of "feral youths" to actually hold some of those views.

In fact I think it's not trying to logically defend what is a natural fear of the other that is admirable, since I believe everybody has these fears/prejudices.

t's also willing to say what other films have been too scared or politically correct to mention: the true horrors we fear day to day are not supernatural bogeymen or monsters created by scientists. They're our own youth.

another true horror: what if the daily mail is right? seems this is being tapped by this film as much as anything...

I'm going to see this tonight.

I thought this movie was a monstrosity. I'm amazed by the reviews and press it's getting.
The class stuff is truly astonishing - it's nothing short of hysterical. More offensive, though, is the fact that as a horror movie, it is utterly devoid of suspense, tension, believablity, etc. Some of the characters' decisions would be good for a laugh if the treatment of the subject matter wasn't so depressingly simple minded.

I love horror movies; always have - subscribed to Fangoria since I was a kid; fill my Sky+ box with endless Zone Horror shit; etc. - and I've always felt uncomfortable with what seems like a pretty powerfully conservative streak in a lot of horror fans. This is the movie for those people.

Seriously, rent "(REC)" or "The Orphanage" or, shit, go see "The Strangers" instead.

I should clarify... This:

t's also willing to say what other films have been too scared or politically correct to mention: the true horrors we fear day to day are not supernatural bogeymen or monsters created by scientists. They're our own youth.

Is a totally legitimate point, or there's something to it at least. But that's not what this movie is about, at all.

My clarification needs clarifying: That statement is definitely not "totally legitimate" as an line of thinking; but as a premise for a horror film.

i thought The Orphanage was unmitigated shite so i will probably not take your advice.

yeah, the Orphanage was sentimental garbage

jed, wld you mind if i also joined you for the Eden Lake outing next week?

gf says she's down if it's a social thing

yes, ward! will be good to meet you eventually.

czn, good.

Seriously, rent "(REC)" or "The Orphanage"

^two of the best films I've seen this year, all in all. Eden Lake was pretty disposable.

This sharp division in opinions is making me want to go and see this.

I thought it was a remarkably good twist on the genre. The class stuff is an absolutely potent force within it, but I think you're missing something if you see it as an expression of an anti-hoodie agenda. It plays with those fears (which are to a large extent perennial ones about the younger generation), but it twists them when certain things happen in the plot that I won't mention here for fear of spoiling. Rather like what Haneke was doing with Funny Games, but with a less heavy hand.

I also thought it was a very efficient chase movie in its own right. The tension was built artfully and there were few of the "why don't they just run/hide/call the police" motivational plot holes that you usually get with horror.

I didn't like the ending, though.

REC I found OK, bit forgettable and generic. The Orphanage I was a little disappointed by, but think I was probably missing a lot of the specifically Spanish resonance. Haven't seen The Strangers yet.

Someone please tell me the end so I don't need to actually go and see it.

Someone revive this thread after you guys have gone to see it, because I'd love to get into this some more. Re: 'but it twists them when certain things happen in the plot that I won't mention here for fear of spoiling.'
...That's what I thought it DIDN'T do, and I was searching for it. I mean, if Alba's referencing what I think Alba's referencing, I found that particular certain scene cheap and lazy. Is there a general thread for spoiler-friendly chat?

Come to think of it, I think I also disagree massively with 'there were few of the "why don't they just run/hide/call the police" motivational plot holes that you usually get with horror' as well! There's one moment in particular that's so preposterous that any hope for a good natured suspension of disbelief was stretched past the breaking point.

Re: Rec, The Orphanage, The Strangers - I don't know why the hell I pulled those movies out - none of them are anything like this at all. They're just the 3 movies off the top of my head that had real scares in them for me in the last year (and they're not even necessarily good - The Strangers is terrible, but mega tense).

That said, re: i thought The Orphanage was unmitigated shite so i will probably not take your advice. - knock yourself out, by all means. Go see the scary poor people.

I'm looking forward to "Martyrs," "Let the Right One In," and "Mum & Dad" myself.

So did you guys end up seeing this?

Great movie!

Am waiting on Lovefilm to send me this.

Don't agree with Savannah Smiles upthread at all. YEah I see why the Daily Mail loved it, but I see that as a latching on to certain values that they have, not an attmept by the film maker to appeal to hoodie-haters. Alba was OTM upthread.

Thought it was ok, wouldn't class it as a horror though. Some scenes were pretty dumb, going into a stranger’s house for one, and then climb out bedroom window!
The ending was grim and left me feeling pretty much the same as Hard Candy did, uneasy.

<3 kelly reilly tbh

by <3 i mean ws

She's a goddess.

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/images/news/1022ritchiereilly.jpg

why kelly? why?

http://www.goceleb.biz/nues/K/KellyReilly/KellyReilly_200708201456Kelly_Reilly_Matt_Hollyoak_shoot_1.jpg
― cozwn, Friday, January 23, 2009 12:16 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

So did you guys end up seeing this?

Yep, and I wish I hadn't. Really grim and stupid.

I have seen shit loads of Horror films, this one is great.

its grim but then its a horror movie. its supposed to be grim.

and its not stupid, but its really straightforward, once it slips the leash, it never stops.

Kelly Reilly is a Goddess - true dat

Hmmm, I too have seen loads of horror movies and with all due respect, this one still strikes me as stupid. I really felt like I was being taken for an idiot. Grimness is really easy too. Seriously this is a minor addition to the genre at best. Just out of curiousity I wonder if the differences in opinion over this film are European vs. American?

And the ending is particularly crass...a giant monster that looks like Gozilla on all fours? Come on!

I really enjoyed this. I have no idea where to start with the class / guilt / who's bad questions. Film violence normally doesn't bother me in the slightest but this had my putting my hand to my head and going "fuck" quite a lot. There were a few points - the incident with Adam and the tyre after KR escapes - that made me think nah, this is beyond credulity now, but then the Bulger case came to mind, and... you know, it's not a film about everyday behaviour, it's a film about an exceptional event. The Daily Mail might like to make people think it's everyday behaviour.

Cooky from Skins is a scary motherfucker. I hope Effie stops shagging him soon before he gets a fat kid with droopy eyes to fuck her tongue up with a Stanley knife.

And the ending is particularly crass...a giant monster that looks like Gozilla on all fours? Come on!

― The Unbelievably Insensitive Baroness Vadera (Ned Trifle II), Wednesday, 4 February 2009 21:57 (2 weeks ago)

What the plot?

you know, it's not a film about everyday behaviour, it's a film about an exceptional event. The Daily Mail might like to make people think it's everyday behaviour.

― Scik Mouthy

i haven't seen the film, so i'm retarded for posting, stfu -- but this argument bugs me. almost always pops up in defenses of popular/genre films that ruffle political feathers. thing is, most movies ARE about "exceptional events", but they're also symbolic narratives about the larger world. the one doesn't cancel the other out in either direction.

me, i tend to like horror movies that use their symbolic texts to subvert or satirize standard expectations and anxiety narratives. i like the way frontiere(s) uses "hoodie" type inner city thugs as the VICTIMS of bunch of inbred rural nazis. i like the way society locates the nexus of horror in the privileged secrecy and isolation of the wealthy. i don't like that wrong turn goes so far out of it's way to identify its protagonists as beautiful and its villians as ugly, basically rubbing the link between disfigurement and degeneracy in our faces. i HATE the way turistas torques up the "foreigners are weird/scary/dishonest and will fuck you up" angle (hell, even hostel handled that issue better).

maybe i'm just saying i like movies that roughly square with my pieties, and object to those that play along with narratives i think are fucked. i dunno.

BIG SPOILERS HERE, TURN AWAY.

At just over an hour in, Em said to me "I thought the point of the film was that the lines of guilt and responsibility are blurred; this is seriously anti-youth, anti-working class" and I muttered "yeah, I dunno what Kermode was on about", and then GIANT FUCKING SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT SO DON'T READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW OK RIGHT CAPICHE KR stabs the least nasty kid in the neck with a big shard of glass just as he's about to apologise and help her escape, then she steals a car (in understandable circumstances) and runs over another kid in seriously brutal fashion and this time it's the girl who filmed it all on her mobile phone, never stabbed anyone, and was running away from Cooky from Skins because she realised he was a nutter and what they'd done was SERIOUSLY WRONG, and then it's revealed that Cooky from Skins has big family issues because his dad's an ex-con with a violent temper and they live in a no-hope town and his future's basically already written and he'll never get to live in the "gated community of 50 executive homes" that his dad's helping to build on the land the kids have always played on but which is now fenced off and wtf is a "gated community" anyway, (I know what one is) I mean ontologically, how did we get here, it's basically landed nobs and serfs and peasants, right, that's fucked up, "keep the chavs out", and the reason the kids are like this is because the oldest, nastiest, most emotionally damaged one is the leader and he goads them all into it and he bullies them and they're all crying and being sick as he's making them stab Michael Fassbender in the fucking mouth, nasty nasty nasty, and poor Adam who gets fucking set on fire for being Asian and doing his homework, oh good grief, and back to Cooky, Fassbender killed his dog, which, despite being a big Rottweiler was probably the only thing that ever gave him any affection and love, and each step, from playing music too loud to waving your dick at KR to nicking the car to pulling a knife to using a knife to beating with a branch to threatening rape to tying up with barbed wire to pouring out petrol to bullying an Asian kid into lighting a match, each step on its own is just part of a game, fucked-up one-upmanship on Cooky's part to see how far he can push other kids, and his internal guilt monitor, already fucked up by rage, is fooled into saying "if I don't light the match or stab the blade, I'm not guilty", and the other kids are shit scared of him, and this fucked-up fantasy land they're in, this Lord Of The Flies world where they have to dole out justice for trespassing, for theft, for murder (whether real or imagined, intentional or accidental), it wont stop, and even when they get to their parents at the end, the parents... well, they think they're confronted by Myra Hindley, she's murdered two of their kids, wtf are they meant to do, "look after their own"... Like I said, I have no idea how to parse my way through this, morally. I don't know who I feel for. Yes, it's an exceptional event portrayed, and "hoodies" or "chavs" or whatever don't knife and burn young professionals every day, but the issues portrayed, the taking of the land by the upper classes, the gated community, the snobbishness, the lack of cultural and political support, the wayward youth, etc, etc, etc, bleeds out as a symbolic narrative in both directions.

Having just read synopses of Funny Games, it's basically a torture porn film that gets critical plaudits because a; it's foreign language, and b; it's a bit meta? But beyond that, the only thing it comments on is violence in the media, right? Cos I think Eden Lake does all that, sans the meta bit, plus adds big dollops of social commentary and class debate, which in itself necessitates comment on the media too.

There's a massive fucking plot hole in this film, in that once the kids go past the point of no return they feel they're killing them to stop them going to the police, but the girl is still filming them on her mobile the whole time, with no one telling her to stop.

Actually Nick I think you're reaching a bit with the defence of the classist stuff in the film - it would work better I think if the descent into hell hinged on a tragic accident on the kids' part, maybe something that caused everything to slip out of control, rather than the ringleaders just being plain psycho. Yeah I know it's a horror film but the issue is that the parents are such caricatures that it's difficult to read the film as a whole in any other fight.

The other big thing about this film is that the hoodies would probably have left them alone had the boyfriend not been such a dick-waving arse, but that, and the executive homes and so forth, all gets swamped by the subsequent carnage.

I'm not sure I'd regard that as a plot hole: a; the files can be (and indeed are) deleted at any time, b; it's a comment on either ignoring or acting up in front of cameras (even if they're mobile phone cameras), i.e. fly-on-wall reality make-a-celebrity shows, c; when you're contemplating stabbing someone in the mouth or setting someone on fire, you're probably not thinking straight enough to tell someone on the periphery to stop filming on their mobile phone.

x-post: I probably am reaching a bit, but I did only watch it last night and am still parsing my feelings on it.

I would say, though, that it kind of DOES hinge on a tragic accident - the dog's death. I had a (big combat) knife pulled on me and put to my neck by the class psycho on the playing field when I was about 13; knives do get pulled easily by kids and have for years, and accidents happen. Fassbender as dick-waving arse is another catalyst, aye. I'm also not sure the parents are caricatures; they're not shown enough to be caricatures, I don't think.

Also, Maximo Park Ji-Sung should totally have been a character in Street Fighter II.

Also, and I feel guilty and a bit wrong for keeping mentioning this - the Bulger case didn't hinge on a tragic accident, and that's my barometer for kids doing horrific things.

Also, as just pointed out by my friend Mat, Cooky from Skins is high on poppers for the hellish scenes. So... Gays are bad?

the girl is filming them to stop the other kids going to the police

this is a horrible film btw

yes this was one part really horrible and one part Die Hard survival action with Kelly Reilly, the latter i did enjoy for obvious reasons

man this is a horrible film. i can't watch horror films tbh, but at least give them a happy ending! fuck. not really sure about nick's bleeding-heart liberal crap upthread. these weren't notably deprived kids were they? basically a psycho family at the heart of this, and they've always existed. also disagree that fassbender was asking for it. he doesn't deserve the lovely and talented kelly reilly, but those kids were the worst and he was right to tell them to stfu.

dismissing it because oh no the bad guys are hoodies and the daily mail hates hoodies seems a bit obtuse to me. while fassbender is a bit of a yuppy, the frankly perfect-in-every-way kelly reilly is a schoolteacher. so she's middle-class but not in an evil way. and (this probably appeals more to the dilletante horror-film watcher) using an irl menace is quite effective.

you could have done the movie without any of the horror stuff, and more somehow about the exec homes or whatever, and that could have been interesting if still deeply unpleasant (but not in an entirely bad way) viewing. the scenes when they arrive at the hotel/pub, and later on the beach, are very effective n e way.

Just watched this also...

Thoroughly unpleasant and nasty. I kind of wish I hadn't now.

My over-riding feelings after just having watched it is a terrifically burning and frustrated desire for revenge on the kids. Fuck the twisted bastards (and the dad too in the end).
According to this thread I'm a Daily Mail reader hiding behind a Guardian facade.

I felt pleased when KR pwned the kid with the glass shard and the girl with the van; they were complicit and I would see it as far too late for them to cry sorry. They should have thought of and acted on that earlier. I just wish KR had managed to snag a few more of them before she finally lost it.

BTW, I'm frightfully middle-class.

Don't mind if I yoink that for my screen name, do you?

Anyway, this is certainly one of the more effective horror films I've seen. Nearly Wolf Creek league, but misses out by having less likable protagonists.

(Or at least by giving them less breathing space to become likable at the start)

I'm honoured, please go right ahead, you have my blessing.

Just don't go torturing, murdering & burning my partner in the woods one weekend, or I'll get all revenge-happy on your ass.

Just watched this also...

Thoroughly unpleasant and nasty. I kind of wish I hadn't now.

My over-riding feelings after just having watched it is a terrifically burning and frustrated desire for revenge on the kids. Fuck the twisted bastards (and the dad too in the end).
According to this thread I'm a Daily Mail reader hiding behind a Guardian facade.

I felt pleased when KR pwned the kid with the glass shard and the girl with the van; they were complicit and I would see it as far too late for them to cry sorry. They should have thought of and acted on that earlier. I just wish KR had managed to snag a few more of them before she finally lost it.

BTW, I'm frightfully middle-class.

― krakow, Sunday, January 10, 2010 11:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

haha yeah. my "happy ending" meant more kids getting killed.

*shrug*

but it's more subtle, this film, the more i've thought on it. as in 'psycho', the victims obviously don't "deserve" what happens, but there are good touches that muddy things, like: the luminous kelly reilly slightly undermines fassbender, at the bar and at the hotel. she ever-so-slightly wills a confrontation. (but then is he really meant to take their shit lying down? middle-class people who say so are being hypocritical imo: there can't be many people, of any class, who watch the film and think the kids are within their rights to bully asian kids, play shitty grime music, and allow their rottweiler to foul the beach.) we never actually *like* fassbender anyway.

and the leads are not completely immune to the anti-social ways of the kids -- one thing that struck me as weird relationship etiquette (it might be just me smoove b'ing kelly reilly) was that on the beach, fassbender was listening to his ipod. wtf. girl, i would not play you like that.

the gated community is a *bit* of a red herring. it's *just terrible* that it's gated, of course, but there's a dash of nimbyism in nick's comments about it. this part of the essex (im guessing) countryside hasn't always been densely populated after all. the house the film ends in is a pretty recent construction. were the film more like 'deliverance', and set in the 1950s-60s, would we side with the rural kids against the east london exiles? fair amount of class self-loathing in this strand of criticism imo.

one of the least enjoyable films i've ever seen.

The part that haunted me the most after seeing it was that poor kid getting burnt up.

when KR kills the kid we feel bad for her: she'll never get over doing that. it isn't a fist-pumping revenge film. the girl totally had it coming though.

lol is it my imagination or are they playing mel and kim's 'respectable' at the house party at the end?? if so, meta. if not, losing my marbles.

'respectable' offers you a lol before giving you the ending.

whilst most horror films used to give you the ending then the lol.

we talked about it over here too

ok lets all shit our pants to something new: 2005-2009 horror films