Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.
In the early aughts, mainly between 2003-2009, a subgenre of horror dubbed “torture porn” emerged thanks to a string of brutal, gory, and extreme horror films released during the period. This darker, more violent and torture filled style of horror was global in scale, too, not just relegated stateside. In the U.S., films like Hostel, Saw, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake were drawing large crowds at the box office. France was making waves with a series of transgressive horror films, like High Tension and Martyrs, dubbed New French Extremity. And the U.K. ushered in possibly the bleakest of them all in Eden Lake.
Written and directed by James Watkins (The Descent Part 2, The Woman in Black), Eden Lake follows couple Jenny (Kelly Reilly) and Steve (Michael Fassbender) as they set out for a romantic camping trip in the countryside. It quickly devolves into a harrowing fight for survival that begins with a group of delinquent teens messing with their stuff that escalates into a bloodbath. Watkins grounds his film in realism, and has absolutely no interest in offering the viewer a reprieve from the tension and violence. If you want a happy ending, you won’t find it here.
It’s not just the ending that leaves viewers cold, but the entitled ruthlessness of the teens terrorizing the couple. They laugh as they torture Steve and Jenny, all the while the female member of the group records their exploits with her phone. It’s this brand of feral youth that frightens to the core, and that has been classified in a specific subgenre of horror known as “hoodie horror.” Hoodie horror arose as a reflection of British middle-class fears of hoodie-wearing disadvantaged youths. Films like Citadel, Cherry Tree Lane, Heartless, F, and even Ils (Them), all classify as hoodie horror, but Eden Lake remains the most notable and infamous. It’s a subgenre that’s come under scrutiny in the U.K. for what it might be saying about the lower class from which these vicious delinquents hail. Whether Watkins intended to infuse social commentary into his mean-spirited horror film or not, it sparked an intense debate regardless.
On a wider scale, the entitlement of the gang in this horror film feels a little too real for comfort, and their behavior chills to the bone; the group even burns one of their own alive. From the unflinching torture of Steve to Jenny’s injuries amassed from desperately trying to escape, Watkins only coils the despair tighter as the story progresses. The special makeup effects further sell the grim reality of this couple’s crisis. Special effects artist Paul Hyett (Attack the Block, The Descent, director of Howl) handled prosthetic makeup design, and notable special effects artist Stuart Conran (Grindhouse, Shaun of the Dead, Doomsday) was also on the team that handled the gorier elements of the movie.
The desolation and bleakness of Eden Lake means it’s a divisive entry in extreme horror. There’s no reprieve from the onslaught of torture, and the evil ultimately goes unpunished. The orchestrator, gang leader Brett, actually is rewarded for his heinous activity in a way. All of which makes for a film that serves to upset and anger its audience. Even if you’re among team “love it,” Eden Lake isn’t the type of film that makes for an easy revisit. The hyper-realistic gore, the themes, and the refusal to offer any redemption for its characters makes this film arguably the darkest horror movie to emerge from the extreme “torture porn” craze post-turn of the century.
