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If you're craving a horror-slasher flick that offers mindless entertainment while causing discomfort, odds are Bone Lake has caught your attention. This new chilling feature from filmmaker Mercedes Bryce Morgan hit cinemas on Oct. 3 with an ridiculous concept and a evocative label to suit.

Note: Spoilers follow for the ending of Bone Lake.

A Blend of Levity and Terror

With a name like Bone Lake and an introductory scene featuring individuals sprinting stark naked through the woods—only to be hit with a bow in sensitive areas—one can guess there's plenty of comic relief all through the film. Additionally, the final scenes, which show the central pair battered and bruised yet chuckling madly side by side, have a sense of macabre comedy.

You would need to find something to smile at, too, if you experienced what Diego and the character Sage face in Bone Lake. A duo full of romantic issues from the get-go—poor dialogue, unfulfilling intimacy, an unfair burden of financial responsibility, you name it—their relationship is challenged when another duo, the character Will and Cin, invade their couple's getaway.

A Morbid Shift

What initially appears to be a clash of contrasts between the duos—Sage and Diego are uncomfortable and working-class, whereas Will and Cin have a rich, lavish lifestyle and are seen kissing on any handy location—takes a dark turn as the trip progresses. Will and Cin play on Sage and Diego's fears in their partnership. They circulate falsehoods and rumors about the other couple, claiming to know about an infidelity and other internal drama.

The insecurities burst in the biggest way imaginable when Diego and Sage find out that Cin and Will aren't just here at Bone Lake accidentally: they possess it and have been luring pairs to the property in order to get them to cheat on their partners. For what purpose? Because Will and Cin are in fact brother and sister. Following their forbidden relationship was discovered by their family and they were split apart against their will, they resolved to punish all others (including their parents). If the society turned against them simply for loving who they want, then they'll oppose the society. Will and Cin's goal is to hold up a mirror to all the pairs they ultimately end up eliminating, in an attempt to prove that their affection is just as valid (or invalid) as the affection of these additional duos they try to break up.

Unexpected Strengths

However, what Cin and Will fail to consider is that Diego and Sage, despite their failure to talk with one another, do care for and love each other. It just took having a murderous couple try to break them up and take their lives to see it. Though it may seem serious, it is not presented that way. Bone Lake's style is more camp than genuine horror.

The movie ends with Sage and Diego joining forces to get away from Cin and Will's deadly plans. Interestingly is that while, at the beginning of the feature, you perceive a vast divide in the relationship between Sage and Diego in relation to Will and Cin, by the conclusion, Bone Lake turns it around. Cin and Will split up to hunt Sage and Diego, but Diego and Sage are communicating better at this stage. They collaborate to butcher the character Will with a power tool. They after that turn on the character Cin, who meets her grisly end at the depths of Bone Lake's pond—but just before the character Diego retrieves the marriage symbol meant for Sage that Will had taken and presented to Cin.

Aftereffects

In the aftermath of their two killings, drenched in blood and viscera, Sage and Diego are seated on the back of a craft. Unexpectedly, this is the closest they've connected since the beginning of the film, now that all their relationship troubles have been exposed for both of them to witness, and all they have remaining are their beaten and wounded bodies. To affirm their renewed intimacy and intimate understanding of one another, Diego moves closer to slip the marriage symbol on Sage's digit and, when she rotates to inspect it in the light, the two start chuckling.

One can easily to see why: When, Will proposed to the character Cin, it was a idyllic, loving scene. However, when Diego repeats the act for Sage, they've only survived a brutal nightmare. Nonetheless, the character Diego's marriage offer to the character Sage is not based on deceit, just the awareness that they've emerged from the most terrible experience of their lives and, despite everything, they still want to pass the rest of their life together.

Director's Insight

However, as filmmaker Mercedes Bryce Morgan notes, the finale may not lead to a happy ever after for the couple.

"After enduring that circumstance with a partner where you endure a murderous bloodbath, what do you come out of that? How do you act as a human being? Thus I sought to show all of the moments there in unison where it's this elation of 'thank goodness' and 'are we getting what we've longed for, but what the fuck transpired? What the fuck do we do from here?' And then that dawning of the situation of 'what does that mean for us {now|today|from