Eden Lake

Jenny (Kelly Reilly) and Steve (Michael Fassbender) head away for a weekend of wild camping in a secluded location where he's been with his friends before: it's a disused quarry conveniently not far from a village and they went there for dive practice. As naff as the location sounds it's beautiful and has been earmarked for redevelopment into a gated community. Steve has plans to propose to Jenny while there.

Their weekend is disrupted by a crowd of rough teenagers playing loud music and being generally antisocial. Steve decides to confront them about their behaviour.

No good will come of this.

CW: injury detail, torture

This is the most harrowing thing I've seen since Donkey Punch and it achieves that through the same means: taking an entirely believable setup, a sudden tilt then escalating it relentlessly. Who hasn't seen a bunch of noisy, spitting, foulmouthed cocksure kids with a barely controlled dog you'd really like to just fuck off somewhere else?

I'm not entirely sure where to pigeonhole it either. Much as it's going to turn away most people who can't stomach horror movies it's kind of not and shares more with something like Deliverance and the whole "this place is going to disappear so we're going there one last time" element has got to be a homage to that, hasn't it?

What it also shares with Deliverance is the demonising of a stereotyped community: in that case "hillbillies" and in this, for want of a better term "chavs". Who were a common villain/scapegoat for UK societal problems when this was made in the noughties and it really does paint them either as brutal scum or easily led into that.

With that slightly distasteful setup it really delivers on the tension though with things getting progressively worse and it all just happening a couple of miles from "civilisation". 8/10 recommended.