Finding your short-term house rental double-booked proved a recipe for terror in Zach Cregger’s “Barbarian.” Faced with the same issue, the protagonists in Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s “Bone Lake” run a wider range of emotions — including annoyance, camaraderie, lust and suspicion — before working their way to terror again. While not perfect, the psychological thriller is cleverly conceived and confidently executed enough to make for a fun ride, one that eventually takes the full plunge into bloody black comedy terrain.
Morgan’s prior features “Fixation” and “Spoonful of Sugar” were both horror-adjacent conceits whose attempts to get inside the minds of unstable heroines ultimately seemed more stylishly intriguing than satisfying. Some crazy people also turn out to be involved this time, too. But Joshua Friedlander’s script traverses a much more defined narrative course, even if it’s mined with twists and deceptions. You could say “Bone Lake” essentially lifts the stranger-danger couples dynamic of “Speak No Evil” but plays it in a less-than-entirely-serious erotic thriller mode, not unlike Polanski’s “Bitter Moon” back in the ’90s. That movie was misunderstood by some who didn’t grasp just how far its tongue was in cheek — a mistake no one will make by the end of the increasingly over-the-top story progress here.
Sage (Maddie Hasson, also “Fixation’s” lead) and Diego (Brazilian actor Marco Pigossi) are a 30-ish couple who’ve been together a few years and are about to kick their commitment up a notch or two. She’s the stably employed one who’ll become sole breadwinner for a stretch, so he can abandon his community college teaching gig to focus on writing a novel. He also plans to use this getaway weekend at a secluded mansion to propose marriage. But while they’re clearly fond of each other, there are also reasons for concern: Diego worries Sage doesn’t really believe in his talent or prospects as a writer. Both are also avoiding the discomfiting subject of sexual incompatibility. There are quite enough awkward, unspoken issues between them for an outsider to pick up on, and exploit should they choose to.
Enter Cin (Andra Nechita) and Will (Alex Roe), a more flamboyantly attractive, extroverted pair who show up due to an apparent booking error, likewise expecting to stay for the weekend. Initially, it seems someone will have to give up their reservation. But this luxe lakeside place could probably accommodate a half-dozen couples easily; the two camps decide there’s room enough for all. In fact, the newcomers are so much fun, the quartet are soon acting like best friends, sharing confidences and group hijinks. They break into locked rooms, discovering one to be full of fetish gear, another suggestive of occult activity.
Everything seems harmless enough until just past the half-hour mark, when an undercurrent of competitive one-upmanship erupts into something more blatantly, offensively manipulative. Soon, hardbodied Will and flirtatious Cin are pulling decidedly dirty tricks, trying to seduce the other pair while simultaneously driving them apart.
It is not until the one-hour point that our comparatively staid protagonists realize they are in active peril. (We’ve already sussed as much, not least from a prologue in which another panicked guest couple had met a violent end in the surrounding woods.) As Cin and Will reveal who — and what — they really are, “Bone Lake” briefly risks wasting so much cleverly ambiguous buildup on a turn toward overly campy, cartoonish villainy. But the film manages to pull off this swerve by focusing on the heroes’ attempt to survive their adversaries, getting splattery gallows’ humor mileage from newfound resourcefulness under extreme threat. Yes, a chainsaw gets deployed, among numerous other potentially lethal devices.
The successful leap from something subversively sly to more outsized bad-taste terrain ends things on a giddy note. It also lets viewers off the hook in terms of credibility questions, like “How does a long-running missing person crime spree in one location go unnoticed by the authorities?” (Apparently, locals did notice, since Bone Lake is named after the skeletons purported to line its murky bottom.)
Friedlander’s individual ideas aren’t particularly original, recalling everything from “The Servant” to the more recent “Saltburn.” But they’re stitched together with dextrous aplomb, and Morgan has brought them to life with sharp, pacey skill. The four principal cast members all enjoy probing the more and less appealing sides of their characters, to good effect. The film has a colorfully plush surface fit to lull the unwary into lowering their guard — Nick Matthews’ widescreen cinematography, Kendra Bradanini’s production design, Eulyn Colette Hufkie’s costumes and the central location itself (Villa Serena, a 100-acre estate in Conyers, Georgia) all make significant contributions to a cannily entertaining whole.
