"BLACKWATER LANE" (2024) is not a street you want to go down! (REVIEW)
There’s something dreadfully wonderful about a thunderous, wind-swept, stormy night in the English countryside. Part Hammer Horror, part Heathcliff on the moors: If used correctly, this setting can do so much of the heavy lifting for a film and, by proxy, its director. Jeff Celentano, the director of “Blackwater Lane,” has the good fortune of this rich Gothic setting. Adapted for the screen by Elizabeth Fowler from B.A. Paris’ 2017 novel “The Breakdown.” The setting and story concern a wife, her husband, and her best friend ensconced in designer clothes, designer cars, designer kitchens, and a murder, one very lackluster, very boring murder. The true crime of “Blackwater Lane” is that all the elements for a serious, sexy, gothic bodice ripper are there for the taking. Or, switching gears, all the elements are there for a fun, campy, sexy, murderous romp through the English countryside. Or even an intense, fractured psyche, multiple-personality Dr. Jeckyll/Sister Hyde bonkers slashfest. Instead, we get some tepid, see every plot twist from space, flaccid why-done-it.
What Works
Because we’re not total monsters, we’ll take a moment to point out some of the good. It all comes down to location, location, location. The setting is gorgeous. It was filmed in Suffolk, England, including Elsing Hall, which is rumored to be haunted. How we wish some of that showed up on film. It pains us to reduce the positive elements to shallow visual esthetics, but that’s all we have here. The cast, the sets, and the locations are gorgeous, and the work it took to create this sleek, polished look is much appreciated, making it all the more heartbreaking that it was all for nothing.
What Didn’t
Minka Kelly as Cass, the dutiful, loving wife, is miscast in this role. If you squint your eyes and turn your head to the side, you might see what the director was going for. An ingenue caught in the unscrupulous machinations of a sinister plot to drive her mad, or worse yet, murder her outright. Kelly’s doe-eyed, innocent demeanor could have worked if the script was tighter, quicker in pace, and dialed up any chemistry between the lead actors. We kept wondering what DePalma would have done with this script. He most likely would have kept the setting alone and pitched everything else. We wouldn’t blame him.
We’ll get to the other actors in this film, but let’s deviate to the script momentarily. The first ten minutes set up the central mystery: on a rainy night, Cass takes Blackwater Lane home, even though she’s explicitly told not to by her husband Matthew, played by Dermot Mulroney. There she comes across a car by the side of the road with a passenger unmoving inside the vehicle; a look of furrowed brow concern falls upon Cass’ face…as she bolts right out of there. We laughed out loud as Cass, worry all over her face, drove right on down the road. “F” that corpse! If you miss this scene at first, do not worry; you’ll return to it at least a half dozen times throughout the film. When you finally find out the why behind the murder, you’ll be forgiven if all you can muster is an “okay.”
“LOST” alum Maggie Grace shows up as Cass’ best friend Rachel. We perked up at this because it seemed like Grace was poised to pull off some Veronica Lake swagger, but she’s banished to the background reasonably quickly until the third act. It’s a shame. There’s a case to be made that there’s a better movie here if Grace and Kelly switched roles, but the script is still the script. It’s lackluster, relying solely on scene after scene of Cass being gaslit by just about everyone in the film. Cass sees a bloody knife on the kitchen table and runs out of the room to tell Matthew, only for it to be gone when they both return. In many scenes, Celentano leans heavily into the supernatural, but they’re all red herrings and go nowhere interesting, or worse yet, completely unexplained.
The core issue with “Blackwater Lane” is that it's a mystery movie with Gothic elements for people who haven't seen Gothic classics and don’t like or have the patience to follow an engaging mystery. Everything is explained repeatedly, removing any semblance of intrigue or suspense. Mulroney, an actor who can be counted on to deliver a strong performance, is relegated to repeatedly telling Cass her memory is bad or not to forget that she has a terrible memory or, better yet, remember when you had that lousy memory just now. The real mystery is how so many people could collectively produce such a dull film.
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Sean O'Connor has been an avid horror fan for the last 4 decades. From the Universal Classics through the New French Extremity, Sean has tried to expand his knowledge and love for the genre through film and literature and looks forward to reviewing all types of world cinema with Macabre Daily.