Studio:   Bleecker Street
Director: Mercedes Bryce Morgan
Writer:   Joshua Friedlander
Producer: Pete Shilaimon, Mickey Liddell, Jacob Yakob, Joshua Friedlander, Jason Blumenfeld
Stars:    Alex Roe, Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi, Andra Nechita

Review Score:

Summary:

A secluded mansion getaway becomes a harrowing ordeal for a man and a woman psychologically manipulated by a mysterious couple.

Synopsis:

A naked couple, Brett and Lisa, flees in terror through remote woods. An unseen attacker shoots both of them with several arrows and ultimately kills the couple.

Diego Rodriguez, a community college teacher who quit his job to pursue his dream of becoming a novelist, brings his girlfriend Sage Wright, who agreed to financially support them, to a secluded mansion he rented for a romantic getaway at Bone Lake. Diego and Sage are surprised when an attractive couple, Will and Cin, also arrive for the weekend in an apparent double booking.

Following some back and forth, the two couples agree to share the rental and begin befriending each other. Will, who talks about sex in a forward manner, recounts an urban legend about the area being called Bone Lake because a serial killer supposedly dumped numerous bodies in the water there.

Will sees Diego privately pocketing a ring, which Diego reveals is a family heirloom that belonged to his grandmother. Diego details his plan to surprise Sage with a marriage proposal.

After everyone continues bonding over dinner, Diego catches Sage masturbating in the bathtub. Diego starts suspecting he isn’t sexually satisfying Sage.

Cin manipulates Diego into handling her underwear while she wears only a towel. Afterward, Cin tells Sage what happened to plant a doubt in her head about Diego’s faithfulness.

Sage suggests leaving the house because the vibe feels strange. Diego convinces Sage to stay because Cin promised to use her professional position to show Diego’s writing sample to his favorite author, Edmund Kerns.

Will convinces the others to break into the mansion’s three locked rooms. The first room turns out to be a sex dungeon containing numerous toys that make Diego uncomfortable. The second room appears furnished for occult rituals with a Ouija board in the center of the floor and a collection of newspaper articles about couples who went missing at the lake. Creeped out, Diego and Sage choose to not open the third door.

Hearing Will and Cin having sex in another room inspires Diego to suggest he and Sage should do the same. This sparks an uncomfortable conversation where Sage confronts Diego about his aversion to sex toys while Diego asks Sage about masturbating instead of having sex with him.

The following morning, Sage sees Will showering naked outside. Will talks to Sage about the freeing nature of nudity.

During brunch, Will suddenly uses Diego’s ring to propose to Cin. Shocked, Diego pulls Will outside for an angry confrontation about stealing his ring and hijacking his proposal idea. Will apologizes by claiming Cin cheated on him, so he did something desperate to save their relationship. Will promises to get Diego’s ring back, but he asks for time to set the situation straight with Cin. Diego sympathizes by telling Will how Sage once cheated with her ex, but they worked through the difficult situation. Will further convinces Diego to play along by again promising to show his writing to Edmund Kerr.

Will and Sage take a drive together to replenish supplies. On the way, Will tells Sage that Cin said something happened between her and Diego. Will uses the story about Sage’s affair to claim Diego feels like he’s entitled to cheat too, and Diego wants his affair to be with Cin.

Left together at the house, Cin tells Diego that Sage supposedly told her she doesn’t believe Diego’s writing is good enough for him to be successful. Insisting he needs a muse like his novelist idol uses, Cin tries seducing Diego.

Claiming Diego also told him about the bathtub masturbation, Will asks Sage who she was thinking about. Will pulls over the car and starts suggesting he and Sage have sex, which Sage seemingly considers.

Will and Sage return to the house. Diego and Sage discuss their suspicions about what the other person did while alone with Cin and Will.

Cin convinces Sage to pop a pill she claims is Molly. Sage only pretends to take the drug, but she frolics outside in the rain with Cin to create the impression of being high.

Diego and Sage regroup in the bathroom, where Diego confronts Sage for the truth about what happened on the drive with Will. Talking things through, Diego and Sage both realize Will and Cin have been manipulating them. Knowing the other couple is eavesdropping, Diego and Sage stage a fake argument to make it look like Sage stormed outside alone. Diego convinces Will and Cin to go looking for her.

Unable to leave because their car keys are missing, Diego and Sage break into the third locked room, which turns out to be a surveillance suite containing photos and mementos of numerous couples Will and Cin have terrorized, including Diego and Sage. Computer files reveal Will and Cin have secretly recorded their guests’ sexual activities, and they had researched Diego and Sage’s online profiles to learn how best to manipulate them.

Will and Cin confront Diego and Sage. Will tells Diego and Sage they have been playing a game to prove their love to each other.

Will hands over Diego’s car keys, but Diego and Sage discover their electric vehicle isn’t fully charged. Will tries to stop Diego by claiming he and Sage had sex by the side of the road, but Diego chooses to believe Sage’s insistence that Will is lying. Diego and Sage try driving away, but Cin uses another car to crash into them. Diego and Sage are taken captive.

Diego and Sage recover to find themselves bound with duct tape back inside the house. Will taunts the couple by challenging them to acknowledge how easy it was for their multi-year relationship to be destroyed in one weekend. Will presents an ultimatum for Diego and Sage to either prove their love with a fight or end up at the bottom of the lake.

After showing pictures of other couples they’ve killed, Will and Cin reveal they are actually siblings Thomas and Alice Price. Forming a bizarre bond as children that eventually turned sexual, the two of them began killing by murdering their abusive, notorious parents.

Once they are left alone, Diego and Sage break free from their restraints. Sage uses the moment to confess she has been faking orgasms with Diego because she feels an imbalance in their relationship now that she is the breadwinner. Later, Diego admits he isn’t the writer he wants to be, so he tells Sage he will return to teaching full-time.

A series of violent, bloody struggles occurs inside and outside the house between Diego, Sage, Will, and Cin. Sage ultimately rescues Diego from Will by swinging an ax into Will’s head. Will falls onto an active chainsaw he planned to use on Diego, which mutilates Will’s body.

Diego and Sage run to a motorboat to escape on the lake. Hiding onboard, Cin attacks the couple. Diego protects Sage by using an ax to sever Cin’s fingers and slash her face. Cin falls into the water where her body is torn apart by the boat’s motor.

Diego recovers his grandmother’s ring from Cin’s severed finger and places it on Sage. Diego and Sage kiss and then laugh uncontrollably before returning to a state of catatonic shock.

Review:

Are you someone who watched “Speak No Evil” (review here), the 2022 Danish-Dutch film about a meek couple vacationing with a suspiciously suggestive pair whose manipulative mind games gradually grow more sinister, and thought, “instead of an Americanized remake starring James McAvoy (review here), someone should reimagine this setup as a throwback erotic thriller fit for an after-midnight slot on 1990s Cinemax?” Probably not, yet here’s “Bone Lake” taking viewers back to a time when seductive suspense involved Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs, Glenn Close boiling a bunny, and reformed good girls like Drew Barrymore and Alyssa Milano coming down with cases of poison ivy.

Only one minute into the movie, a naked man fleeing through the forest alongside a naked woman has his scrotum speared with an arrow fired by an unseen pursuer. Sending a bright neon signal that all bets are off when it comes to how wicked “Bone Lake” is willing to get, the camera even has the balls, you choose if the pun is intended, to show his sack skewered in a closeup. Of course, this is just your usual “start with a bang” prologue to say, “don’t worry, there will be blood,” before settling down for the quieter character buildup required to come next.

Diego and Sage are an amalgam of various movie couple pairings. They dress like average people, him in a baseball cap and flip-flops while she wears a sensible sweater and high-waisted pants, yet they’re not nondescript post-college sweethearts or annoying social media wannabes. They’re a little more well-to-do than that. Of an indeterminate age that’s neither too old nor too young, Diego recently quit his job as a community college teacher, putting some pressure on Sage to financially support them both while Diego pursues his dream of becoming a novelist.

If there’s one thing “Bone Lake” does well, it’s balancing what’s plausible, bizarre, and sometimes nutty, all in the name of creating lurid late-night entertainment. That starts with depicting Diego and Sage as having all the right ingredients to be relatively relatable, a bit bougie, reasonably intelligent, and yet still capable of doing something stupid because of the sexual secrets they’re afraid to whisper to one another.

Before she starts a new job, Diego and Sage decide to have a romantic getaway at Bone Lake, whose multiple meanings dialogue confirms are intentional, where he’s rented them a secluded mansion on the water. Their vacation gets off to a good start, as they’re not even in the estate five minutes before they already go at it on a bearskin rug.

Diego doesn’t notice Sage faking her orgasm, but they both soon notice Will and Cin, an attractive couple who seemingly rented the same location for the weekend. Double-booked Airbnbs turned out well for characters in other thrillers like “Barbarian” (review here) and “Gone in the Night” (review here), so, after addressing reservations about the unusual arrangement, everyone agrees the place is big enough for all four of them. After all, they might as well make the best of an awkward situation, especially since Will is a chef who can cook their meals, and Cin can supposedly get Diego’s writing samples in front of his favorite author.

It isn’t long before Will and Cin’s bold behavior turns titillating. Sage spies Will showering naked outside. Wearing only a towel, Cin turns on her charms to convince Diego to dig through her underwear. The other couple is certainly up to something, and Diego and Sage quickly find that their infidelity fantasies have lured then into a psychological game of sex, lies, and video surveillance. Will and Cin’s secret agenda eventually leads exactly where any viewer will predict, though that doesn’t make the salacious journey to get to a surprisingly gruesome finale any less satisfying.

Nothing about “Bone Lake’s” directing, acting, or production feels cheap. That’s not to say it looks like millions of dollars were poured into it. Rather, it comes across as a genuinely committed attempt to craft a slick little film streaked with some slaughter and a slight touch of self-aware silliness, not like the main concern was rushing through a janky job so careless filmmakers could get the camera equipment back to the rental house on time. Everything, from moody lighting schemes to competent actors whose unfamiliar names don’t bring any prejudicial baggage to their characters, is as good as it has to be, and in some cases, better than this brand of B-movie usually is.

“Bone Lake” doesn’t play for laughs, but it’s not above slipping in a smirk to remind viewers it knows exactly where it lies on the suspense movie spectrum. Those having fun with the film will have no choice but to laugh when Sage picks a particularly peculiar moment to tell Diego how becoming the breadwinner has made her unable to climax. Slight spoiler here, “Bone Lake” enjoys teasing its audience too, deliberately refusing to conclusively confirm if Diego sleeps with Cin or if Sage cheats with Will so there’ll still be something to argue about after. Put together with pleasing amounts of soap opera drama, telenovela twists, and a spicy splash of trashiness, “Bone Lake” simply delivers a guilty-pleasure good time.

Review Score: 75

Nov 26, 2025

BONE LAKE (2024)

“Bone Lake” comes across as a genuinely committed attempt to craft a slick little film streaked with some slaughter and a slight touch of self-aware silliness.