The Winter Lake: Cool Irish rural thriller is a strong starter that stops short of its premise's promise

By Jim Slotek

Rating: B-minus

A medium cool rural thriller, The Winter Lake has plenty of ingredients that should add up to a big finish. Among them: a disturbed young man, the discovery of an infant’s body and the literally bone-chilling milieu of a rainy Irish countryside.

But the feature debut of director Phil Sheerin is all build-up – very good build-up to be sure, with some terrific acting sustaining the mood through two acts. But the payoff doesn’t live up to what the premise promises.

Anson Boon is a young man who collects dead things in The Winter Lake.

The Winter Lake opens with a suggestion of all-out rural gothic horror, starting with a scene of a body at the bottom of a lake, and leading us straight into the story of young Tom (Anson Boon), an uncommunicative and sullen young man, who has moved into his late great-grandfather’s farmhouse with his mom Elaine (Charlie Murphy). There is a creep-factor to Tom that is enforced when we discover that they are there because of something he did back in the city.

Oh, and he has an affinity for sharp objects. At the point where we meet him, he’s using a box cutter to cut and empty out animal skulls he finds on the shore of the local lake for his collection. Then he finds something that rocks his dark world – a carefully wrapped skeleton of an infant.

Naturally, he takes it home and tells no one.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

What follows is the methodical (some might call it slow) unraveling of the secrets that are metaphorically and literally buried in the town. Tom is coyly teased and eventually taken in as a confidante by his troublemaking neighbour Holly (Emma Mackey). Already a popular girl (with a brutish ex-boyfriend who doesn’t like Tom on sight), her interest in him seems more like a game than a real friendship, with levels of manipulation that increase as the plot develops. 

And there’s Holly’s surly dad (Michael McElhatton), who initially shows romantic interest in Elaine, and then a narrow-eyed dark side.

There is a violent conclusion to all this, predictably, and it seems like an easy way out, plot-wise. But if it leaves the viewer a little wanting, it can be forgiven, given the sure-handed finesse of the mood construction and the performances. Boon, in particular, straddles a line of buried emotion somewhere between alienation and being on the spectrum, and still speaks volumes with his silences. 

And Mackey manages to morph from what starts out as a bored small-town mischief-maker, to a more complex and wounded character who stirs the drink. 

And the Irish countryside – specifically Sligo/Leitrim in the West – is practically a character in its own right, lending a chill to the proceedings, as well as moments of almost overwhelming beauty.

The Winter Lake. Directed by Phil Sheerin. Written by David Turpin. Starring Anson Boon, Emma Mackey and Charlie Murphy. Available for streaming June 22 on Bell, Cogeco, Telus, Sasktel and iTunes. Available June 1 on Amazon Prime and Google Play.