Because I signed up with Max as a reviewer for ‘Salem’s Lot, I was given advanced access to another feature film coming on that streamer on October 10. I’d heard nothing about Caddo Lake prior to that invitation and I decided to go into it cold. Didn’t even watch a trailer. Had no idea what to expect.
There’s this fractured family that lives on the shores of the eponymous lake, which was created by a dam many decades ago as part of the TVA project. The region (near the Texas/Louisiana border) is currently experiencing one of its periodic droughts, so the water level in Caddo Lake is low, making navigation problematic and even dangerous. The cypress trees produce underwater “knees,” which are are now sticking up all over the place (The exteriors were filmed on the real lake), and the dam is crumbling and at risk of collapse.
The story has two central characters: a man named Paris (Dylan O’Brien) who is currently working to remove some of the hazards that have appeared near the water’s surface, and a teenager named Ellie (Eliza Scanlen) who is staying with a friend because she’s always fighting with her caustic mother. Paris’s mother had a seizure that caused their vehicle to go off the bridge into the water, where she died. He’s obsessed about her illness, in part because he may be exhibiting some of the same symptoms. His fixation is his defining—virtually his sole—character trait.
Ellie’s dad disappeared when she was a baby and her mother (Lauren Ambrose) started a new family with Daniel (Eric Lange), who is a patient stepfather. Ellie has an 8-year-old stepsister named Anna, and it is her disappearance that drives much of this movie. When Ellie storms off in another huff after an argument with her mother, her adoring sibling tries to follow, taking a skiff into dangerous waters. A massive, days-long search ensues.
Because I didn’t even watch a trailer, I didn’t know if this was going to be a horror movie, a creature feature (there are strange noises in the muddy, forested swamp around the lake), an eco-horror movie, or a straight-forward domestic/crime drama. The fact that M. Night Shyamalan produced it should have been something of a clue.
HBO doesn’t want reviewers to reveal certain elements of the story, which makes it really hard to talk about the film. I could say “if you liked X” you might like this (and there is an X that I really what to mention, but I can’t!), but that would give it away. The biggest problem is that it takes a long time to get to the point where you go “holy shit!” The first 45 minutes are all setup and there were times when I was ready to tap out. However, after the first time I said “holy shit,” I was all in until the end.
In old text adventure games, there was a point where the computer would inform you: You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all the same, and if you didn’t drop items like breadcrumbs you’d end up hopelessly lost. Caddo Lake is a little like that. You can tie yourself up in knots trying to follow the logic of what’s happening. It does all make sense, trust me, but you might need a pen and paper to figure it out.
There are only the barest bones of characterization in the movie, although the cast is uniformly excellent when given something to chew on. Still, the film feels ponderous at times, confusing at others, and even when it gets really interesting, things come to a grinding halt so some google searches can explain to viewers what is really going on. It’s not a spectacular movie, but it has its rewards if you stick with it.
