Want to see a horror film? See Eden Lake

But before I get to that, let me say this: I don’t really like horror films. Tonight reminded me why. Christian Toto wrote encouragingly about two: Rogue and Eden Lake. I saw Rogue a couple of weeks ago and held off writing about until I’d seen Eden Lake. Well, that was tonight.

Rogue is one of the best man-versus-seriously-nasty-beast films since, well, Jaws. What’s startling is that very little happens during the first 30 minutes or so, yet I was staring at my screen in rapt attention. It’s damn near a travelogue for the Northern Territory of Australia. It’s mind-bogglingly beautiful, yet somehow, amidst all this light and beauty, in wide open spaces, claustrophobia builds, a sense of dread creeps in, and in a splash, a man disappears and no one know how. He’s just…gone.

Like Bruce the shark, the crocodile in Rogue is within the realm of the possible. What makes the situation horrifying is that the creature’s motivation is simple: Humans have invaded his territory and he will continue to kill until either they are all dead or the survivors have left. What differentiates Rogue from Jaws is that there is no great hunter out to kill the beast. This is not an adventure. This is an attempt to survive. Don’t try and assume who will live and who will die; odds are you’re wrong.

Radha Mitchell is great as the tour guide whose little boat tour goes astray. (As an aside, it was marvelous to finally hear her native Australian accent.) Watching her growing uncertainty as to what’s going on and what to do about us brings us right into the story. Michael Vartan is great as a travel writer who finds himself with much more than a short article about the Northern Territory.

What I really appreciated about the film was the slow sense of dread. Once we find ourselves in the croc’s lair, the slow way it moves about is just perfect. The visual effects are excellent, letting you just marvel at this killing machine as it oh-so-slowly creeps by. Hold your breath, please don’t make a sound, it might get angry.

Then again, I think I’d rather face the croc than Eden Lake. Eden Lake is why I don’t like horror films and that’s because a good horror film is first and foremost horrifying. Slasher flicks like Friday the 13th just aren’t, at least not to me. They’re just body counts.

Eden Lake is the real deal. The setup is simple: Michael Fassbender takes Kelly Reilly to a remote lake in order to propose marriage. It’s meant to be a romantic weekend together but they run afoul of a group of kids. From there, things go very, very wrong.

Did I say “kids”? Yes, with several young enough that in California the courts would presume that they are incapable of committing a crime. And yet…

What results is a taut, smart, nail-biting experience. The film never strays into the absurd. What I appreciated most was the degree to which events were foreshadowed. You can pick up on where things are heading and that only adds to the tension. I watched this with several friends, all of whom started saying, in unison, “Oh no” as everyone realized where things were going.

Which is not to say that the film is predictable, because it’s not. As said, it’s smart, not just smartly done. Writer/Director James Watkins uses subtlety as much as gore to get your attention. Pay attention to little character notes and you’ll be rewarded in the end.

And in the end I was left with a scream, the sort that comes from a film, gets under your skin, into your head, and leaves you…disturbed. This is why I generally don’t like horror films, because when they’re done right you are horrified. That’s exactly what Eden Lake does, and it does so without zombies, masked unstoppable killers, or even buckets and buckets of gore.

If that’s the sort of film you like, I can’t recommend Eden Lake enough. For myself, I’m going to watch some comedies in an attempt to take the edge off.

And get that scream out of my head.