Movie Review: Bone Lake

 

Michael's Movie Grade: F

A true piece of trash. 

This horror film seems to mistake shock value for thrills. The film opens with a running naked couple being shot to death by arrows. This opening scene ends with the guy getting an arrow through his testicles. This scene has little to no bearing on anything that follows but it is unpleasant and gross, so it is there. Later when a character is cooking dinner there are very gruesome shots of him cutting up a fish. Again, there is no need for this, but it is here for shock value. Most of this movie though does not revolve around violence but rather sex. These sex scenes simply feel incredibly trashy and embarrassing to watch. There is nothing at all sexy about them and instead come off as silly (not in a funny way though). They also seem to go on forever and disrupt the whole plot of the movie. The movie only runs a little over an hour and half but there were times when I wondered if I read the runtime wrong as it seemed longer than some three-hour movies I have seen. Through much of the second act this movie plays like a trashy soap opera focusing on the romantic and sexual entanglements of characters we never get to care about. When the danger is finally reveled in the third act (which we have been impatiently waiting for it to be for what seems like an eternity), it is through a horrible plot twist. Like the previous gory sequences, I have mentioned the plot twist is disturbing and gross but not for the right reasons. It does not add a sense of tension to the story (especially since we don't care about anything happening) nor does it add any real depth. Instead, it is just shocking a gross for the reason of being shocking and gross. The climax similarly is just an excuse for gore with no actual tension or suspense anywhere around.