Eden Lake (2008)

This was one I'd been meaning to watch for a while and now got to it. It's a brutal, disturbing social commentary regarding youth crime, no consequences to behaviour and the fear, at the time, in Britain of the 'hoodie' culture. It's a made-up story, but reflects real concerns between the haves and have-nots, monied people and those living and being socialised by a negative culture with damaged role models.

Director/writer James Watkins' base story is about a rich couple (played by Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly) who go off to Eden Lake for the weekend with a view to buying a house on a new development, not yet built. When they get there, there's a bunch of local teens they clash with.

Things go from bad to worse until the teens, larking around with and teasing the rich couple to start with, turn it into more like terrorising behaviour which they are looking to shoot video of - again, the beginning of the culture of teens videoing everything on phones.

It all gets out of hand quickly and the group get to a point of no return. They have done too much and have been too nasty to let it end peaceably. So the film depicts an end-story which I won't spoil for you. Puts me in mind of films like I Spit on Your Grave, but very much British - and here.

It's very well acted by all the cast and shot mostly hand-held as the panic sets in and chase/survival takes hold. Edge of the seat stuff at times, always gruesome and eye-opening. It kicks around on various streaming services but is now on AppleTV I see. Or you might find the DVD in cheap second-hand outlets like Music Magpie.