Bone Lake

a porn movie disguised as a horror. few films have made me feel as deceived by their own packaging as this one. maybe it's just me, but i expected 'bone lake'. by its title and poster, to be a classic slasher set by a lake, with all the genre’s ingredients: blood, sex, nudity, and victims falling one by one. however, what we get is far from that. either that, or my perception was simply wrong. instead of a slasher, the film presents itself as a kind of erotic thriller with faint touches of horror toward the end. the problem isn’t so much the change in direction as the way it disguises itself as something it’s not. for most of the runtime, the plot seems more interested in the sexual component than in creating tension, fear, or even an unsettling atmosphere. the supposed climax — the part that actually sparks some interest — arrives when it’s already too late. fortunately, the film is short, which at least prevents the disappointment from dragging on. still, it’s frustrating to get that far expecting a slasher with good cinematography and a bit of gore, only to end up watching a cyclical, predictable story lacking rhythm. the characters have little charisma or development, and the script repeats situations until it becomes monotonous. even the plot, which initially promises more, collapses within the first twenty minutes. it can’t be said that 'bone lake' is an absolute disaster — there are scattered ideas that could have worked in another film — but it does leave a clear sense of deceit. it’s not the worst movie i’ve seen, but certainly one of the most dishonest in what it promises. and for a slasher lover, that’s almost unforgivable. spanish: una porno disfrazada de una de terror. pocas veces una película me ha hecho sentir tan engañado por su propio envoltorio. quizá sea yo el único en esto, pero esperaba que 'bone lake', por su título y su cartel, fuera un slasher clásico ambientado junto a un lago, con todos los ingredientes del género: sangre, sexo, desnudos y víctimas cayendo una a una. sin embargo, lo que encontramos está muy lejos de eso. eso o ha sido mi percepción errónea. en lugar de un slasher, la película se presenta como una especie de thriller erótico con ligeros toques de terror al final. el problema no es tanto el cambio de rumbo, sino la manera en que se disfraza de algo que no es. durante gran parte del metraje, la trama parece más interesada en el componente sexual que en generar tensión, miedo o siquiera una atmósfera inquietante. el supuesto clímax —la parte que realmente despierta algún interés— llega cuando ya es demasiado ****. afortunadamente, la película es corta, lo que al menos evita que la decepción se prolongue demasiado. pero resulta frustrante haber llegado hasta ahí esperando un slasher con buena fotografía y un mínimo de gore, para acabar viendo una historia cíclica, predecible y carente de ritmo. los personajes apenas tienen carisma ni desarrollo, y el guion se limita a repetir situaciones hasta volverse monótono. incluso la trama, que al principio promete algo más, se desmorona con los primeros veinte minutos. no se puede decir que 'bone lake' sea un desastre absoluto —hay ideas sueltas que podrían haber funcionado en otra película—, pero sí deja una clara sensación de engaño. no es la peor cinta que he visto, pero sí una de las más deshonestas en lo que promete. y eso, para un amante del slasher, resulta casi imperdonable.

"Bone Lake" is a very atrocious mean spirited horror film with scares that is about as much lifeless as it's antagonists and a plot that is as a dead end as the main characters’ relationship. Mercedes Bryce Morgan filmmaker and music video director who is best known for directing the films Fixation and Spoonful of Sugar really has a great concept but the overall execution and and the way the performances are played makes this feel like a Tyler Perry horror movie. Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s Bone Lake begins with a naked couple running through a forest, hunted by an unknown person wielding a crossbow. They’re ultimately taken down in gruesome fashion—the scene’s money shot, such as it is, sees the man taking an arrow to the testicles—before being arranged rather artfully on a chaise lounge. As it turns out, this little prologue is one of our protagonists, Diego (Marco Pigossi), reading his partner, Sage (Maddie Hasson), an early draft of the novel he’s been writing as they ride to a vacation retreat. Sage isn’t impressed, calling the whole thing “gratuitous,” before eventually arriving at an Airbnb mansion where Diego then surprises Sage by getting naked in front of her suggesting they have sex and she starts awkwardly talking to his **** and having some pretty lackluster sex, what with Sage faking an orgasm, because apparently talking to Diego about how to get you off would be gratuitous. Sage is, I guess, consistent, which isn’t something that can be said for "Bone Lake." Right as Diego and Sage are settling in, Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) show up at the manse, having somehow booked the same place for the same weekend. Naturally, the addition of a couple of fun, flirty, and horny L.A. 10s to the mix to bounce off of two extremely vanilla Ohio 6s sparks a relationship crisis, which gradually turns the film from a cliché sex comedy into a cliché thriller. But the crisis is less about two walking American Apparel ads traipsing around half-naked for the vast majority of the film than some extremely basic he-said-she-said games. Every attempt by "Bone Lake," as written by Joshua Friedlander, to ramp up the sex factor—a secret kink room here, some **** in the bathtub there—is by design, a means of propelling Diego and Sage toward some sort of new dynamic in their relationship, but none of it is deep. There’s at least some level of self-awareness to the film’s soapy provocations being enough to shatter Diego and Sage’s world, namely with a line in the climax that their relationship was never stable if Will and Cin’s actions were enough to threaten it. Still, that awareness doesn’t extend to the emotionally and physically neglected Sage realizing what flavor of loser she’s attached to, or the film’s violent conclusion, which is more willing to take a wrecking ball to the uncomfortable silences that seem to define Sage’s relationship with Diego. Unfortunately, the onus is entirely on Will and Cin’s big secrets to carry the trashy weight of Morgan’s film, and their particular kinks being as Funny Games-coded as they are doesn’t grant us much more impetus to want Diego and Sage to make it past the weekend—alive or as a couple. At least the violence winds up delivering by the end, but aside from one particularly gnarly moment involving a chainsaw, our lack of investment in Diego and Sage’s relationship means that much of that violence comes off as, well, gratuitous. Nonetheless, "Bone Lake" is the kinda of ridiculous horror film with antagonists that have no depth to them that feel completely overacted by the performances and a plot that veers into a very safe direction we've seen before over and over again to the point where you're just hoping you never return to the lake again.

Seriously! What a piece of garbage. After 45 minutes used fast forward. Was hoping for a trashy Hollywood thriller.

A boring movie about horny idiots being weird and duplicitous. Nothing about it is particularly "bad," but I couldn't be bothered to keep watching the millionth time one of the characters started blathering on about their sex lives.