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Bone Lake is anything but a calm, relaxing vacation destination.
In the seductive new horror-thriller, a double-booked lakeside mansion forces a couple to share the property with another mysterious, boundary-pushing pair. From there, the getaway “spirals into a nightmarish maze of sex, lies and manipulation,” a synopsis teases.
Director Mercedes Bryce Morgan tells PEOPLE that Bone Lake, which premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2024, is “meant to be pure fun.”
“We’ve had audiences gasping, laughing, even yelling out loud, which is my favorite kind of movie-watching experience,” says Morgan of reactions at early screenings. “I want people to leave with a sense of what not to do in a relationship if you want to save each other — metaphorically or, in our case, literally.”
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Morgan says the movie has stirred up conversations about relationships, including “communication, sex lives or future dreams.” The filmmaker adds, “It all comes back to one thing: If you’re going to play the game, you’d better be playing by the same rules.”
Filmed in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Rhode Island, Bone Lake was “just as wild to shoot as it is to watch,” recalls Morgan.
The four lead actors — Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi, Alex Roe and Andra Nechita — and the crew “powered through real storms and all-nighter shoots from start to finish.”
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“The cast really had each other’s backs, and that bond built their onscreen chemistry,” says Morgan. “Whether someone was taking glass to the face or an arrow to the crotch, we always found time to laugh and joke about it afterwards.”
Things were far from grim behind the scenes. Jokes Hasson, “It’s very easy to laugh when you’re covered in fake blood in a room full of sex toys!”
Nechita echoes that “every day felt like play.” She explains, “We’d be covered head to toe in fake blood, screaming our lungs out, running from axes, and then immediately folded over in laughter at ‘cut.’ ”
“When you’re shooting heightened sequences it can get heavy fast, so remembering to have fun and finding the lightheartedness in all of it was key,” says Nechita. “Mercedes really set the tone for that balance. She crafted an environment that let us be serious when we needed to, but also gave us the freedom to explore, try new things, and enjoy the madness.”
Pigossi agrees that Morgan “created a space where we could all play.” He adds, “It was very collaborative, very alive. And honestly, I love action and blood — I turn into a kid on set when I have to do those scenes.”
Bone Lake is in theaters Oct. 3.
