Brooklyn Horror 2024 Review: BONE LAKE, Sleek, Sexy Erotic Thrilller Comes With a Big Finish

Professional couple Sage and Diego check in to their weekend rental, a literal mansion by a lake. Before they can say that it is almost too good to be true a younger, hotter couple, Matt and Cin, walk through the door. Seems they have been booked the same weekend. Rather than give up a whole weekend in a luxurious home they agree to share, there is more than enough room for everyone. Good times are had but soon inhibitions are challenged and truths are twisted. Someone has come to this weekend rental with deadly intentions and a game of survival has begun. 

 

Sex and Violence. It is track 7 on the 1981 album Punks Not Dead by Scottish punk band The Exploited. Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s new erotic thriller, Bone Lake, begins with these lyrics playing in the background. 

 

 

It puts it right out there. Those three words, over and over and over again (It’s ... the bulk of the song’s lyrics). Here's our movie, expect sex and violence. In that order. And if you need any further convincing there is another moment where the young stud Matt talks about how he thought it was called Bone Lake because folks had a lot of sex when they came ... went there, then he heard of the lake's dark past. Again, we have another pointer, hinting at what's to come ... happen. 

 

So we have your young and hot couple, Will and Cin. Fit and slender, Will looks like he’s cut from a prime-time 80s drama. Cin is influencer sexy. She claims she is in finance, but that could just be because she rakes in so much from her OF. Then we have our pair of once-weres Sage and Diego. Less than frumpy, they are writers by trade. Diego wants to quit his teaching job and write his novel. Sage is a published writer (wait until you find out what the article is about) who has taken an editorial job to support them both while Diego sets off on his literary quest.

 

Matt and Cin's promiscuity presents a challenge to the couple who are having intimacy issues of their own. What we appreciated is that the sexuality in this story is never exploitative. It will be steamy and suggestive, sure, and there is a lot of the did they or didn’t they to ramp up the tension. It will get racy when it absolutely has to be, which is during the… the, uh... (whew) I almost slipped up and wrote the word ‘climax’ there for a seco– damnit!

 

Bone Lake is a story in three parts, following the traditional three part narrative structure: the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution. The setup creates doubts. Doubts about who is really who they say they are, and doubts about who is being or who can be faithful to whom with so many pheromones flying around. This puts relationships in doubt until the galvanizing final act. 

 

The second act largely confirms our suspicions, that someone is not who they say they are. Someone is always trying to manipulate someone else, or coerce another into having sex with them. Lies begin to create or expose weak points in relationships. We’re successfully building up our villains here. More importantly building up animosity towards them from a viewer standpoint. 

 

Then the final third capitalizes on all of that. We have seen the manipulation and the lies. We have seen the distrust grow. We have seen our villains at work and now they must pay. Or not. There is a real joy in watching Morgan and their screenwriter Joshua Friedlander put it all out there as well, and put the crazy on full display. There is a lot of fun to be had in watching villains have their John “Hannibal” Smith moment; they love it when a plan comes together (Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all night, remember to tip your wait staff). The story has a playfulness here in the end that doesn’t disarm the situation, just makes it more fun to watch. 

 

The lead up to the finale is full of confidence and bravado, on behalf of our villains in the piece. 

There are a couple twists and turns that make it more fun than it would have been playing it straight. And Bone Lake has one of the most satisfying finales I've seen this year. Full stop. It gets crazy but not over the top and is capped off with some fantastic gore. It is a real payoff for what has been a slick, quietly stylish thriller that goes full horror through the finish line.

 

It’s a winner in our books.