‘Bone Lake’ Director Mercedes Bryce Morgan Dives Into Steamy Thriller

Maddie Hasson and Marco Pigossi Bleecker Street and LD’s BONE LAKE

Courtesy of Bleecker Street and LD Entertainment

If you thought the rental in Barbarian was a nightmare, then just wait until you feast your eyes on Bone Lake. And yes, before you say anything, director Mercedes Bryce Morgan is well aware of the double entendre related to her steamy erotic thriller.

“I’m here for it, because that’s just as silly as we want it to be,” the filmmaker tells me over Zoom. “It needed to be something that’s silly because this movie should not take itself seriously, nor does it.”

Now playing in theaters, the film written by Joshua Friedlander centers around Sage (Maddie Hasson) and Diego (Marco Pigossi), who rent out a lavish lake house for the purposes of a romantic weekend, only to find the place double-booked by another couple — Cin (Andrea Nechita) and Will (Alex Roe).

The four agree to share the capacious space, but the relaxing getaway slowly devolves into an uncomfortable thicket of mind games as Cin and Will begin to exploit small fractures in Sage and Diego’s seemingly stable relationship through a combination of advanced gaslighting and carnal temptation.

For what purpose? You’ll just have to go and see the movie, which plays out as an engrossing mix of Barbarian, Speak No Evil, and Ready or Not.

Bone Lake director Mercedes Bryce Morgan talks new erotic thriller

Josh Weiss: How did you first become attached to the project?

Mercedes Bryce Morgan: I got sent the script on a Friday and [the message said], “Mercedes, you have to read this over the weekend and meet with the producers.” I always know when I have a visceral reaction to something, whether or not it’s a good fit. And this is one of those projects where I got to the plot twist and went, “Oh sh**!” I knew it was something that I had to do.

Weiss: What would you say was your overall vision for the movie?

Bryce Morgan: I wanted something where we cared about the characters. We almost start out in this European relationship drama, and then we go into horror and really pay it off. You can see that through the lighting, and also how the characters act; how things go from grounded to really over-the-top in, all senses the word.

Weiss: Were they are specific influences on Bone Lake?

Bryce Morgan: We wanted to get really creative with the shot design. So we looked at things like Evil Dead 2 or A Clockwork Orange. Just thinking, “How can we lift this from what could be a basic four-people-in-a-house movie and really creative with it?” With the drama side of it, I looked at Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a lot for the couple versus couple [side of the story], but then also other horror references such as Speak No Evil.

Weiss: What are the biggest themes of the film?

Bryce Morgan: I think this movie is fun for anyone to watch, but I think it’s especially fun for couples. I never like to tell people what to think in a movie, but I think it’s really examining, “What are the games we play? How do we work in a relationship where we think we’re playing the same game, but we’re not, and how can that become a life or death situation?”

Weiss: The movie only has four main character. Is that less or more of a challenge when compared to working with a bigger ensemble?

Bryce Morgan: I think if you’re liking or connecting to them, it doesn’t matter how many or how little little people you have, because it’s what you do with them. I watch movies with big casts and I don’t know who anyone is or what their characters are. And then you can watch stuff with very few people and go, “Okay, I understand the dynamics between all of these people.”

Weiss: With the rise of Airbnb and Vrbo, we’ve seen an evolution of the haunted house genre beyond the old manor or cabin in the woods. How do you feel about that?

Bryce Morgan: It’s a premise that we have seen before, of a couple going into the Airbnb and it’s doubled booked. But how are we doing it in a way that we haven’t seen before where we’re adding in this erotic thriller element to it? It’s fun to combine all these genres together, and that’s something that people are wanting.

Weiss: How do you juggle the tones between different genres?

Bryce Morgan: I boil it down to tension and pay-off. I think that tension is having a mystery of wondering what’s going to happen. It’s also the threat of death and the possibility of sex. All these genres are very much related to each other, but we also want each of them to pay off. We want it to get sexy, we want it to get bloody; we want to know the mystery and we want to have the plot twists. But this is also a comedic movie. It’s making sure that when it when it hurts, it hurts and that when you’re supposed to care about something, you care, but also not treating it too seriously.

Weiss: Why do you think horror and comedy go together so well?

Bryce Morgan: I think that when we laugh, it’s our body’s way of giving us these hormones to tell us it’s okay. You look at classic slapstick where someone’s falling down, and we go, “Oh no!” Then they get up and we see they’re okay. I think the same thing is true for horror, where a lot of time you’re like, “Oh my god! There’s a chainsaw! They might not be okay!” It’s laughter as relief because we know that we’re watching actors.

Weiss: Anything to add?

Bryce Morgan: Go see Bone Lake [on the big screen]. It’s the most fun to watch in a theater because it kind of feels like the cult experience of everyone screaming at the screen and going, “No, she did not!” I highly recommend that.

Bone Lake is now playing in theaters. Click here for tickets!