Eden Lodge

Pretty decent suspense type horror, plenty of twists and turns that you would expect, and as its not a high busget film, don't expect this to be a polished film. Sure, there are some rough edges here and there, but there were a few things that I didn't expect.

Basically, if you watch the film, go into it not expecting the earth, and you may be surprised.

And, unfortunatly in the UK, there are plenty of B&B's called Eden Lodge, so be careful out there :)

EDEN LODGE is one of those low budget British horror films where nothing really happens apart from a halfway-decent sense of mood and place. It reminded me a lot of the film shown the previous night on the Horror Channel, SIREN, which had more exotic locales but was similarly light on plot and incident.

The story is about a sinister bed and breakfast where the guests go missing. There's no more to it than that, and fans looking for slasher horror in the form of death and gore will be disappointed as this is very tame. Instead the viewer has to put up with the tiresome acting of unknown cast members and a major plot point that seems to have been borrowed from that '70s horror classic FRIGHTMARE. The most interesting thing about EDEN LODGE is the way the title and box art blatantly copy the earlier British horror EDEN LAKE, which was about ten times more powerful and compelling than this rip-off.

I found most of the characters in the film pretty unlikeable. Mawky girls, quiet, simmering men, a horrible local but a very nice old lady. Much is unexpected and it takes a good while for the plot themes to start coming together. Some don't seem to have any logical connection to the plot resolution at the end, frankly. The gore is not too much for the faint-hearted, though very effective and realistic. The music is well used and has a nice depth and presence. I've seen a lot worse that this. It's a decent enough horror film and worth a watch.

It's sad how they even contrived the cover art to be reminiscent of Eden Lake. I kept thinking I'd seen Eden Lake but no, it was this movie.

An amateurish and lacklustre affair that doesn't make me question why they tried piggy backing off what I've been told is the far superior movie.

Forgettable characters and an annoying relationship crisis at its centre contribute to this being more irritating than scary. It's kind of painful too because they use an idea from another movie as a plot twist. It's Resovoir Dogs by the way. I wish I'd just rewatched Resovoir Dogs.

To its credit, we have an adequate who-done-it set up where every character in some way seems like an obvious choice, thus making it ironically hard to pinpoint the real killer for a little bit at least.

I should have seen the twist coming, it's the least imaginative plot twist you can do but I missed it.

But you will be missing nothing by missing this.

This was not a good film. Poor acting, very little plot, and just a lot of weirdness. It was like the cast came out of an 80's music video or something. And there were some very weird accents! Also very strange was the lighting. Daylight seemed to last for 5 minutes. Someone starts walking across a field, and by the time they get to the woods at the end (of course, where you'd want to be in a horror film) it's pitch black. So pitch black you couldn't really see what was going on!! It all just felt very amateur and silly, too many "why...?" questions to really start asking. However amateur and silly isn't necessarily a bad thing! It was quite refreshing in its own way and entertaining. I do love horror and there were a few moments in this that really made me jump (and laugh). It's so bad it's actually a little bit good!