{"id":49961,"date":"2025-10-05T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=49961"},"modified":"2025-10-04T21:23:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T01:23:58","slug":"bone-lake-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/05\/bone-lake-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Bone Lake [2025] [Halloween Horror Month 2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A couple deals with personal issues, along with another couple double booking a rental mansion in Mercedes Bryce Morgan\u2019s annoying misfire, Bone Lake.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Diego and Sage are a couple on edge. While they seem happy, it\u2019s obvious there are cracks; he\u2019s quit his job to be a novelist, she\u2019s picking up the slack with notable pain behind her smile. They\u2019ve booked a sprawling mansion on a lake for a sexy getaway. All good? Too bad another pairing, Will and Cin, a little more freewheeling and open compared to the tight original couple, have also seemed to book the mansion. What to do but try to share? But an opening sequence with two nude folks chased and murdered in the woods tells us danger is looming.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the film is now set up, we wonder where this will lead. Aspects of the house indicate some weird sex cult?\u00a0 Barbarian monsters in the basement based on that \u201cdouble booked Airbnb\u201d flick?Or even supernatural (a Ouija board is on hand)? Perhaps a Speak No Evil situation, given that we have the same couple dynamics, with one couple tormenting the other? I was genuinely intrigued where it would head, even if it seemed obvious. I was hoping the \u201cyeah, this is what\u2019s happening\u201d was a misdirect.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadly, all my intrigues led to nothing but annoyance. Bone Lake is Speak No Evil, either version (for the record, I like both a great deal), but \u201cSexy\u201d and stupid. I wonder if screenwriter Joshua Friedlander found the one exec at Bleeker Street who hadn\u2019t heard of the \u201chorror of manners\u201d and convinced him it was a new idea.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I guess that\u2019s a bit of a tell, more than normal, but it\u2019s an obvious turn from the get-go.\u00a0 \u201cSexy is in quotation marks. Yes, there are plenty of hot young bodies, cleavage, and a smattering of nudity (less than expected with the \u201cerotic thriller tags on advertising). And plenty of psycho-sexual drama. Masturbation, bodies in the rain. Several taboos. But, Speak No Evil 2024 has a Beast Mode James McAvoy. He\u2019s far sexier. And I\u2019m saying that as a straight guy.\u00a0 The attempts to make something \u201csexy\u201d in Bone Lake come off silly, earning scoffs with the overwrought and sheer awkward directness.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is nearly a dynamic between the couples and their inhibitions or lack of. Like Speak No Evil, we have a tight, troubled couple, further on edge with the sparky, anything-goes couple pushing their buttons. The series of microaggressions is a lot of \u201chey loosen up\u201d, obvious plays at sexuality, and unbelievable set-ups and lies. This sort of film is dependent on \u201chow much will they take for politeness,\u201d but it gets ludicrous, holding back just for the movie to continue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As the show unfolds, some actions and lines make little sense from what is seen, especially in they say one thing like they know a truth, but immediately act as if they don\u2019t. There is a specific scene towards the end that plays like the script got jumbled, but they went with it anyway. This happens often.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The acting can\u2019t save the annoying script and reveals. No one is believable in any way. At the center is Maddie Hassen as Sage. She spends the whole film with an annoying little smile. The type our face we get when we think \u201cdon\u2019t smile, don\u2019t smile.\u201d Her line readings are confusing. She\u2019s unreadable, in a bad, \u201cinteresting choice here\u201d way. She was similarly \u201ctaking me out of the movie\u201d strange in Malignant. Her other half, Marco Pigossi, gives a baffling run as well, mostly in large reactions, big gestures, and wide-mouthed responses. He looks lost. The other couple, played by Alex Roe and Andrea Mechita, are so obviously lying with \u201cmiddle schooler tells you they aren\u2019t on their phone when it’s literally in their hands\u201d\u00a0 readings of their machinations and lies, it\u2019s a wonder the half doesn\u2019t immediately see through it all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the film is nearly saved by a complete change of tone in the final 15 minutes. I\u2019ll give it that. The climax has an over-the-top energy that the rest of the film lacks due to general sluggishness.\u00a0 It awakens everyone, moving from a bland camera use (besides a handful of annoying movements meant to make you uncomfortable, but I found them annoying) to a great look and design. It\u2019s as if someone else came in and took over. It’s an odd turn after the over-seriousness of the first 75 minutes. It needn\u2019t go all out, but keeping the whole more in this style, leaning into the cheese, making it more overtly comic, like the finale would have worked wonders, moving from the lack of self-awareness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bone Lake? More like Bore Lake! Ahem. Pun aside, Bone Lake is an annoying, lesser version of a story made much better twice in the last five years. Its twists and turns are obvious, save one that is so out of left field it makes the movie a comedy, which it does become for the final fifteen minutes. Just watch Speak No Evil (which does function as a dark comedy of manners), either one, instead. Since this wants to be sexy, watch McAvoy in the new one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple deals with personal issues, along with another couple double booking a rental mansion in Mercedes Bryce Morgan\u2019s annoying misfire, Bone Lake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[477],"class_list":["post-49961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49961"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49968,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49961\/revisions\/49968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}