31 Fates Worse Than Death! (#27: Eden Lake)

I'm a huge fan of this extreme punch to the gut that came out of England last year, so I'd really rather not spoil the fate in mention. If you haven't seen Eden Lake yet, consider this your spoiler alert warning.

Now, before I get to this Fate Worse than Death, I'd like to talk about one particularly gruesome death in the film: Adam, the young boy who gets caught up in Jenny's plight. Poor little guy just wanted to wander around the woods outside a quarry and collect bugs. Instead of that calm afternoon, he comes across Jenny and the gang pursuing her. It isn't long before he's caught, tortured, and goes out of this cruel world with his head on fire.

And yet given the option, Adam's fate is probably preferable to what happens to Jenny.

Or more specifically, what we assume happens to Jenny. Director James Watkins denies us (or spares us, depending how you look at it) the visual of what happens to Jenny after the parents of all the barbarous kids lock her into a bathroom. The last we hear of her are pained screams from behind a closed door; what happens after that is anyone's guess. Since the children have already tied people down with barb wire, have attempted rape, and lit a wholly innocent kid on fire, whatever fate the parents have in store for Jenny can only be worse.