Movie Review - Caddo Lake

Director: Logan George, Celine held
Genre: Drama/ Mystery/ Thriller
Runtime: 99 minutes
Year: 2024
Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Eliza Scanlen, Caroline Falk, Lauren Ambrose, Sam Hennings, Diane Hooper, Eric Lange
 
Description: When an 8-year-old girl disappears on Caddo Lake, a series of past deaths and disappearances begin to link together, altering a broken family's history.

Review: Caddo Lake is a zone of hundreds of lakes and streams with overhanging trees in the southern United States. A young girl goes missing among the mangrove forest when she chases after her older half sister Ellie in a boat. Fed up with the arguments at home, Ellie spends the night at her friend’s house on the other side of one of the lakes. When she learns that her sister is lost, she rushes back to her mother and stepfather to join the search.

In another storyline about the residents around the lake area, scrap metal collector Paris is still struggling with the death of his mother, who crashed years ago. Paris led a reclusive existence ever since, still searching for answers around that mysterious day. Ellie’s physical quest and Paris’ spiritual one seem to have little connection, yet converge. Caddo Lake connects their lives in a way that is as chilling as it is meaningful.

Directing duo and husband and wife Celine held and Logan George set a tremendously atmospheric mystery with “Caddo Lake” that remains intriguing all the way to the end, when the pieces of the puzzle fall together. The mystery surrounding the characters and that vast lake builds slowly, but the tension is palpable in every scene.

Dylan O’Brien, who plays Paris, never managed to land on Hollywood’s A-list, but his acting has proven for years that he belongs among the talents of his generation. It is Eliza Scaneln as Ellie, however, who is the absolute star of the film. Her performance is mesmerizing.

“Caddo Lake” is best to watch without knowing to much about the plot. It has some mind blowing plot twists and remains intriguing until the very end. Really strong mystery, streaming on Prime right now.

Rating: 4,5/ 5