Bone Lake: Carnage Results from an Airbnb Double-Booked with an Oversexed Couple

By Liam Lacey

Rating: B-

The practical message of the horror thriller Bone Lake is this: When you book an Airbnb, be cautious if none of the previous guests has left a review. 

Also, if the nearby lake is named after the skeletons that keep popping up out of the water, consider a different location and at minimum, make sure you have a phone number of the host in case of a booking problem.

Maddie Hasson and Marco Pigossi make shocking discoveries about their unwanted roommates

Otherwise, you may end up like the couple in the movie, insecure community college teacher and aspiring novelist, Diego (Marco Pigossi) and his journalist girlfriend, Sage (Maddie Hasson), who arrive at a lakeside Airbnb mansion for a romantic weekend to mend their relationship and take it to the next level. But shortly after arriving, they’re disappointed to discover they are double-booked with another couple. 

 After brief negotiations, the two couples agree to share the house. So it is that Diego and Sage meet Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita), an extroverted alpha couple, who mix fancy cocktails, wear insufficient clothing, engage in moist displays of affection, and generally emit an unsettling horny vibe.

Soon, it becomes clear that Will and Cin (short for the the spice, cinnamon, and homonymous with “sin”) are not just living their best sex lives but are up to something sinister. While pretending to be Diego and Sage’s new intimate besties, the odd couple begin probing the weak points of the other couple’s relationship, their sexual incompatibility and financial status.

Gradually, Sage and Diego are lured into temptation and rejection of each other.

“Why are you so resistant to sex toys?” Sage demands of Diego in what is the film’s second most memorable line.

 (The first most memorable line would be Will’s: “Babe! I can’t find the chloroform!”)

Both Will and Cin are exaggerated characters with an absurd backstory who exist as dramatic devices to test Diego and Sage’s fidelity, involving parallel attempted seduction scenes and a lot of inappropriate talk. 

Around the film’s one-hour mark, the stakes shift as Sage and Diego clue in that they’re both in mortal danger. That information comes courtesy of lots of “evil house” paraphernalia, including several secret rooms with camera feeds, fetish gear, occult objects and old newspaper clippings that tell of unsolved crimes. As the danger mounts, the pair are bonded by their mutual will to survive.

Director Mercedes Bryce Morgan (Fixation, Spoonful of Sugar), working from a script by Joshua Friedlander, keeps the pace moving well and creates some undeniable fun in a shell game of the three movie genres that depend on physical reaction —comedy, horror, and erotic thriller. 

 At its most sophisticated, the script suggests an update of Edward Albee’s black comedy, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (an acknowledged inspiration).  But the eroticism is kind of under-done, with more talk about sex than sexual action before the film transitions to something much broader and sillier. 

What Bone Lake lacks in bodies coupling, it eventually makes up for in bodies being dismembered in the film’s slapstick horror conclusion, where things get very red and splashy. This leads us to the film’s second important lesson, if you should end up in the wrong kind of Airbnb, remember that the couple that slays together, stays together.

Bone Lake. Directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan. Written by Joshua Friedlander. With Alex Roe, Maddie Hanson, Marco Pigossi and Andra Nechita. Bone Lake opens in theatres across Canada on Oct.3.