The Director And Cast Give Us A Tour Of "BONE LAKE" (INTERVIEW)
The recipient of the Bronze Audience award at this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, “Bone Lake” is an erotic thriller about the worst ways to prove your love. The film’s four characters comprise two couples who accidentally book the same lake house for the weekend. They decide to make the best of it, but things don’t go as planned, leading to mind games and a gleefully bloody finale. I spoke with director Mercedes Bryce Morgan, as well as stars Marco Pigossi (Diego), Alex Roe (Will), and Andra Nechita (Cin) about collaboration, improv, and one of the most crowd-pleasing finales of the year.
Lowell Greenblatt: The film is mostly a chamber piece with only 4 characters. Were there any rehearsals to solidify the relationships?
Mercedes Bryce Morgan: Since we usually don’t get enough time as we want, the way I treat rehearsals is moreso to get everyone comfortable with each other and to help them learn how to work with each other. We had a little bit of “Hey, I’m going to give you the scene to do this way, then we’ll switch completely.” But a lot of it was finding it on set together, in the moment.
LG: So what did you find out “in the moment?”
Diego (Pigossi) and Sage (Maddie Hasson) have no idea what they’re in for. (Photo: B-Sides Badlands)
MBM: Everyone brought their characters off the page, especially Alex and Andra’s characters. They’d have fun and dance in the hallway. One of my favorite moments of Alex’s is when he’s fucking with Marco and he goes “grrrr!” Those are just a few examples of the silly things that weren’t in the script.
Alex Roe: Mercedes really created a zone we could feel free to play. Sometimes after a take, I’d ask her “can I really?” And she’d say “yes [Laughs].” I think it was the same for everyone. To have that support without judgment or ego was really nice. There’s no one scoffing behind the camera. You’re free to create.
LG: The audience I saw it with definitely appreciated that. I loved how goofy it was.
Marco Pigossi: Like Diego eating the sausage? I was like “Mercedes, are you sure about this?” [Laughs].
LG: Yes, but how did you all prepare when the film takes a very different turn? It’s like you’re all going from a play to a full-on bloodbath with stunts and effects.
Nechita and Roe are just here for a good time. (Photo: Screen Rant)
AR: The weird thing was that the gorier it got, the more fun it was. There’s a lot of relationship stuff that really builds the characters, which is super fun as an actor, but once it takes that gory turn, it’s just fun to shoot. Just allowing yourself to believe these circumstances and just play.
MP: It’s almost as if you’re shooting a different film. For obvious reasons, we had to leave the blood for the second half of the shoot. The beginning is all about trying to find the dynamic between the couples. The next thing I remember, we were going outside and throwing a bucket of blood around like “let’s do this” [Laughs]. It’s a whole different experience.
Andra Nechita: It was so much fun, day in, day out. It was two hours in the makeup chair to get bloodied up to make that shift, but it was like “let’s do it!” It was chaotic, in the best way.
AR: It was also like a payoff for us in the same way it’s a payoff for the audience. We’re kind of weirdly on that same journey. Everything just got heightened in those last few days of shooting. You finally got the whole picture when you’re shooting it.
LG: Will and Cin feel like they’ve been grown in a lab with the sole purpose to ruin Sage and Diego’s relationship. I’m sure it’s in the script, but how much of yourselves did you put into these characters?
AN: Marco says so beautifully that art is a mosaic of all your life experiences, so I think there’s definitely a lot to pull from, at least for me and Cin. That was a fun challenge. Alex also brought so much to the table. Every day we got to play off of each other. In rehearsal, we got to a place where we understood their backstories, so we were on the same page. There are little moments in between the group scenes that always felt like a little side world was going on between Will and Cin. We were communicating through eye contact, and it was like, let’s hit the gas. Mercedes made it a wonderful environment to play and go wild with it. It definitely helped.
AR: I felt like Will is the kind of person we’ve all met, that you really want to hate, but then you can’t. He’s a great cook who feeds everyone, he does charity work. The fun thing was to create something to make Diego say “not THIS guy.” I think we’ve all had feelings in relationships where it’s like “damn, my girlfriend should really be with THAT guy. He’s way better than me.” Also, making Marco eat a lot of pizza so I look more trim [Laughs].
LG: Very insidious! I want to talk about the ending but without spoilers. There are special effects, and stunt work as we get into the actual “Bone Lake.”
AN: I’ll let Mercedes take this, because I don’t know how to swim [Laughs]! I’d never been underwater before.
MBM: When we were shooting it, she said “Mercedes, just so you know, I’m a little nervous because I’ve never swam before in my life.” But she did it! And it’s a testament [to her]. It’s a small indie, so people just need to put their all into it and trust each other to get it made. The movie is a slow burn, but I personally don’t like horror movies with a slow burn that doesn’t pay off, so I wanted to go “we have THIS, then we move them over HERE.” So we made sure to keep giving people that. A lot of people know this, but there was a storm, so we had to shoot the “lake” at the end on a soundstage.
LG: I’ve been referring to the final moment as the “Graduate” shot. Am I reaching or was that something you were going for?
MBM: Totally going for it! One hundred percent. We actually shot five different versions of it on the day to explore “how are [the characters] feeling about this? Are they elated? Have they lost it? Have they not?” We did test screenings and this was the [ending] people loved, so that’s the one we went with. Throughout shooting I thought “we need to be able to give ourselves these options because we need to be able to know how we feel once we go on this journey with these characters.”
The interview was edited for length and clarity. “Bone Lake” was screened at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.
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