Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Caddo Lake’ on Max, a Twisty Sorta-Supernatural Mystery Set in an Extra-eerie Bayou

Caddo Lake ( now streaming on Max ) is a movie that you think is about X, but is actually about Y. I can tell you that X is trauma in the wake of a family member gone missing, but if I told you what Y equals, I’d have to kill you (and risk being killed by the spoiler cops). There’s definitely something supernatural happening in this twisty thriller from directors/writers Celine Held and Logan George, and that absolutely isn’t a spoiler, because one look at the credits reveals a name we all know in M. Night Shyamalan, who’s the modern master of the blindside twist. But whether it’s a mind-blowing blindside twist or a maddening blindside twist is always the question with an M. Night-affiliated project, and I’ll aim to answer that here – without saying too much, natch.

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The Gist: Caddo Lake is a classic setting-that-functions-as-a-character. In fact, it may be more distinctive than the human characters in this movie, because said humans don’t contain unknowable mysteries. In reality, Caddo Lake is a gorgeous expanse of bayou and flooded forests along the Texas-Louisiana border, and you probably won’t be shocked to learn that it’s saddled with some creepy lore regarding bigfoot and other weird cryptids. Let’s be thankful that Caddo Lake avoids being another boring monster movie and I’ll say no more about what’s to come, but the filmmakers sure work hard to make this place feel alive and haunted. Score one for some spooky-season ambience, then.

Two somewhat parallel stories play out here. One involves Paris (Dylan O’Brien), who’s traumatized by the death of his mother, which we see in the opening scene: He was in the car with her when she had a seizure while driving; she drove off a bridge into the river, and he couldn’t save her. Some years later, he remains unconvinced of the medical examinations of her illness, and his father (Sam Hennings) wishes he’d just let it go. His relationship with his ex (Diana Hopper) fell apart after the accident, and when she’s back in town for a funeral, they reunite and literally play house on the site where he began building their home, never to be finished. Lots of old feelings still linger. Now, Paris works mending pipes in the swamp, and he starts wondering why his hands get shaky while he’s out on Caddo Lake. Is it a hereditary condition passed on from his mother? Maybe. But he can’t shake the eerie sensation he feels in that remote place.

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In the second plot, teenage Ellie (Eliza Scanlen) routinely clashes with her mother (Lauren Ambrose). Ellie feels like an outsider in her own family. Her stepdad (Eric Lange) is kind and her half-sister Anna (Caroline Falk) is her only real confidant, but Ellie’s dad has been missing for years, presumed dead, leaving a big empty hole in her life. One evening, after yet another clash with her mother, Ellie hops on her skiff and motors through Caddo Lake – and the engine suddenly dies. She sees wolves in the woods, not at all a common sight. Something not right is going on here. She spends the night at a friend’s house and returns in the morning to hysteria. Anna hopped on her own boat to follow Ellie, and never came home. The cops are called, search parties get to work. While out looking for her sister, Ellie’s hands begin to shake. Strange. Is this some kind of… phenomena? Sure seems like it, if the audio-visual whooshing effect is any indication.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Caddo Lake is Shyamalan meets Stephen King – take the what-the-hell’s-going-on-around-here-ness of The Happening (albeit with the general laughable awfulness removed!) and cross it with the distinct sense of time and place you see in King’s Maine-set narratives (like It or Salem’s Lot ). I also caught a more overt version of the mystical-swampland vibes we felt in Jeff Nichols’ Mud .

Performance Worth Watching: Scanlen brings some necessary seriousness and complexity of character to Caddo Lake , drawing us into Ellie’s emotional journey. (And while we’re here, let’s remember how terrific she was in her film debut Babyteeth , which deserves to have more eyeballs on it.)

Memorable Dialogue: “I know my mom was out there,” Paris insists, after a particularly disturbing trip out on Caddo Lake.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: “This place – nature made this place.” That’s as much of an explanation as you’re going to get from this movie, re: the hows and whys of what happens, which will intrigue some and frustrate others. I lean toward the former, because inference is almost always more effective than the explicit. To be clear, the whats are obvious after a while, but that’s more than enough to keep us involved in the story. Explanations are tedious. But the opportunity to piece things together and interpret the stuff of plot, character and setting? We should embrace it.

Whether the interpretation is satisfying is another matter. I’m afraid Caddo Lake teeters on the edge of being another rumination on grief and loss and trauma, a three-pronged topical spear that so many filmmakers wield these days – the only characters who experience the strange phenomena in the swamp are in the midst of a yearslong psychological crisis. But at least Held and George take a reasonably fresh, understated approach to the notion that grief-stricken people so often entertain: What if I could go back and see, do and/or experience things differently? What if Paris could save his mother or Ellie could keep her father from leaving?

Not that this thematic fodder is airtight; sometimes it’s as sloppy and murky as the mud these characters frequently tromp through. Held and George also entangle their ideas in a slightly gimmicky plot that resembles a bulletin board in a serial-killer movie – you may need photos and string and thumbtacks to connect this with that and the other once the Shyamalanianisms hit. My brain hurt after a while, but it also appreciated the filmmakers’ effective use of sound and visual design, and the detailed sense of place they create. Strong dramatic performances from the cast help draw us into the domestic drama as well. Whether it’s satisfying or not depends on whether you’re frustrated by unsolved mysteries, or willing to accept that life is full of things that can’t be explained.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Caddo Lake is a mostly functional hybrid thriller – and it may compel you to rewatch it to more fully understand it.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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