Blackwater Lane

Blackwater Lane poster

It was a rainy night as the car came into sight, parked on the verge of a country road, the driver frozen staring straight ahead, oblivious of Cass as she drove up beside and paused; perhaps concerned for her own safety after a truck passed aggressively her only moments before, she did not exit her car, but nor did she notify anyone of her concerns, not that night nor the next morning when the news announced the murder of a local woman, found on Blackwater Lane.

The Crawford House a remote Gothic mansion currently undergoing renovation, Cass lives there with her husband Matthew, often away for business, and concerned for her safety Cass considers upgrading the security, hearing strange noises in the night, conscious that she has not been quite herself since the death of her mother from early-onset dementia, and increasingly erratic and making claims which lack evidence Cass begins to wonder if she is also losing her mind.

Blackwater Lane; on the road through the forest, Cass (Minka Kelly) finds a car parked in the rain.

Based on the mystery thriller novel The Breakdown by B A Paris and adapted by Elizabeth Fowler, the question is what might have been lost in translation to turn a New York Times bestseller into director Jeff Celentano’s Blackwater Lane, less a slow burn than a soggy sizzle which stretches the obvious conclusion out for almost two hours as Cass (Almost Human’s Minka Kelly) mixes red wine and anxiety pills as a justification for her incomprehensible actions.

Matthew (Secret Invasion’s Dermot Mulroney) somehow always managing to miss the strange sounds as he creeps about the creaking house, the voices which seem to call her name, the nightmarish images on the television, despite Cass always having her cellphone in her hand she never once thinks to take a photograph or record video which would stand as evidence, similar to the way she consciously failed to tell the police she was first to find the body of the Jane Walters, an acquaintance through her best brunch friend Rachel (Maggie Grace ensuring The Fog is not the nadir of her career).

Blackwater Lane; Cass (Minka Kelly) is surprised when Matthew (Dermot Mulroney) creeps up on her again.

Celentano favouring a frequent slow fade, the sense is that he unclear which direction he wishes to take on Blackwater Lane, abandoning scenes before a dramatic point is made though perhaps mercifully sparing the viewer more of the awkward and unnatural verbal holding patterns of the dialogue as Matthew once again fails to notice suspicious shadows or flickering lights, contradicting his wife and denying her agency, something which in other circumstances the more cynical might term gaslighting.

Any thriller can only be as good as the ultimate reveal of the underlying truth, and Blackwater Lane offers a car crash of incredulity, a conveniently found mobile phone with incriminating step-by-step text messages, a poorly thought out entrapment, a late-night rendezvous in the rain which nobody in their right mind would have agreed to in the first place, and the discovery of the murder weapon which Cass immediately handles, getting her fingerprints all over it: were the attending police any more competent, they would also be aghast.

Blackwater Lane will be available on digital platforms from Monday 27th January

Blackwater Lane; Cass (Minka Kelly) finds something disturbing in the garden.

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