REVIEW: Eden Lake

Eden Lake – 8/10
The Daily Mail were right, hoodies are over running the world and are trying to kill us all! Eden Lake takes the premise that tabloids ram down our necks on a near daily basis about the rise in hoodies and the chaos that surrounds them and turns it into a strangely convincing and disturbing low budget British horror flick.
A couple go to Eden Lake for a weekend getaway, only to encounter a group of tear-away hoodies. First is just a general aggravation, but then turns into something a lot more sinister and ultimately, life threatening for the couple. They should have just let them listen to their lovely music!
The hoodies might as well been wheeled in from the street, these kids are so convincing; I genuinely believed they were real, they were very frightening. Jack (TV’s Skins) is a stand out in a shining ensemble of relative unknown young actors. The adults are in fact overshadowed by them. Kelly Reily is fine, doing the innocent to upset to rage covered in mud very well and Michael Fassbender is solid as her fiancé.
There level of violence borders on excessive and also unnecessary. There is a prolonged torture sequence, that is bordering on inevitable in horror these days, in an attempt to appease gore hounds. We do not need to see it in our faces. However, Eden Lake does not rely on this technique, The nastiest piece of violence takes place completely in the background and is shown for a couple of seconds, however, that particular moment has stayed with me and I found it incredibly disturbing. Sometimes some of the events verge on silliness and are predictable. Despite this, it is genuinely disturbing with a terrifying finale which may haunt you. The atmosphere and slow burning to pressure boiling point, the murky gritty atmosphere all is the real horror. What is ultimately scary is that it feels real, this could happen. The violence, lack of empathy and how situations can escalate beyond your control is terrifying. Especially when this happens in the biggest, most isolated forest in the world after the one they used in Deliverance. Speaking of, obviously, Eden Lake is indebted to – middle class vacationers stumble across the lower class territory, feelings of animosity, hate and ultimately, stalking evolve rapidly. Without the water rapids.
Highly recommended, it will divide audiences, it will also generate controversy in the portrayal of the youths. It holds a mirror to society’s problems and simply that, it does not profess to know the deep roots of where this hatred stems from, it just wants to scare the living day lights out of you.