Very few thrillers open on a sweaty close-up of a man’s ballsack being ripped in half by a crossbow bolt, and even fewer can live up to the promises of such grisliness. But then again, very few thrillers are Bone Lake; an erotically charged (yes, someone does make a ‘Boner Lake’ joke very early on), psychosexual horror of manners that pits itself as a gorier, sexier, less devastating (and potentially more rewarding) cousin to Speak No Evil. One that starts in much classier fashion than bisecting ballsacks though, it must be said.
In fact, most of Joshua Friedlander’s script is surprisingly mannered; a gently unfolding tête-à-tête between two young couples, stranded in a double-booked holiday home somewhere in the middle of the woods. The sort of deliciously icy “our lives are better than yours” drama filled with quiet loathing and not-so-subtle digs, but which director Mercedes Bryce Morgan very wisely dials up to 10. Cleverly unpicking the sexual politics of long term relationships, but in gradually campier and campier fashion.
And despite the opening ballsack (we’re never forgetting the ballsack) Morgan’s camera afterward is surprisingly restrained too. Lingering on certain forbidden looks and dangerous glances, but not as much skin as you might expect. Investing far more in the knotty back-and-forths and unspoken rage between her cast of 4; a smartly cast Alex Roe, Andra Nechita and Marco Pigossi but grounded perfectly by Malignant’s Maddie Hasson, as maybe the most nuanced and unpredictable of the bunch.
That’s not to say things don’t get messy, though. A film as locked-down as Bone Lake (we barely ever even see the titular lake, let alone anything beyond the house) does struggle to keep up the energy in its middle third, and a few slightly too-preposterous twists really leave you begging for that ticking time-bomb of a finale to finally go the fuck off. But by the time all hell does break loose, no expense is spared.
Morgan goes all-in on buckets of goo and runaway chainsaws. Final revelations are as sensationally silly as you’d hope. No more ballsacks get ripped in half. It’s a bloody good time every way you look at it.
And that’s Bone Lake in a nutshell; what could otherwise be a pretty wordy affair is delightfully splatter happy here, as fun and bloody as it is probing.
Bone Lake screened as part of FrightFest 2025.
