Max’s Caddo Lake understood something so few projects do when it cast Dylan O’Brien as its leading man — we need to give these early 2010 teen heartthrobs more leading roles because, my god, they can act.
O’Brien can act, and Caddo Lake lets him.
Written by Celine Held and Logan George, this twisted M. Night Shyamalan-produced mystery thrives in the presence of its lead. O’Brien guides us through a story of family grief and loss with a soft chivalry that amplifies everything this subtle story has going for it.
Nobody Wants This on Netflix recently discovered how valuable these early aught actors can be when it cast Adam Brody in a leading rom-com role. Yet, this untapped group of once-in-a-generation actors continues to occupy supporting roles despite being well-versed in grabbing our attention after years of doing it on hit teen dramas.
Caddo Lake establishes O’Brien as its leading man from the first shot and never has to look back or worry about keeping the audience engaged.
O’Brien is capable of doing that himself with subtle accent work and vulnerable physicality. His performance is exquisitely grounded. While this actor shines in comedy, he navigates these heavier showcases with the same conviction that helped him lead The Maze Runner franchise. Both projects rely heavily on reactionary storytelling to convey the premise successfully, and O’Brien excels in this department.
The mystery is constructed to let O’Brien explore the escalating plot without external conflicts or antagonists interfering. The result is a gripping tale that relies less on the horrors of its making and more on the actors who stumble into its grip to make this movie work.
O’Brien is an exceptional scene stealer, and Caddo Lake utilizes his skills with deadly precision.
Okay, now I am going to speak directly to a specific audience. So, if you did not hyper-fixate on MTV’s drama series Teen Wolf or a character named Stiles Stilinski in your teen years, please scroll on through to the next section of this film review.
Now, my O’Brien girlies, my Stiles stans, prepare yourself for this movie. O’Brien sports a familiar buzzcut, and I have my theories, but it may or may not be just so they can use old photos of him from the Teen Wolf set to show the passage of time.
Paris is also driven by an obsession with the otherworldy; he is determined to seek out the potentially supernatural reason behind an illness in his family and prove something more sinister is happening in his hometown. He believes there is something unexplained about the illness his mother had that others suspect he may now also have because it’s hereditary. That is, in fact, very close to Stiles’ arc in the third season of Teen Wolf.
All this said I have something very exciting (and terrifying) to tell you. This is it — this is the closest we have come to recapturing the magic of Season 3B. This film is twisted and dark, just like the Void Stiles storyline, and O’Brien thrives in that environment as if no time has passed. Caddo Lake is Beacon Hills, and Paris is all the parts of Stiles we love to champion.
As someone that typically enjoys O’Brien’s lighter comedic roles, I attest that his greatest role was his darkest, and Caddo Lake comes damn close to replicating that success with this performance.
However, O’Brien is just one facet of this film’s success, and it’s exciting to see many other elements match his performance.
Eliza Scanlen is a phenomenal, scene-stealing beast who helps carry the other half of this story with an incredibly compelling emotional drive. With such little dialogue or conflict to work with, she conveys so much of the developments in her expression, which is as impressive as it is haunting.
She earns the gutwrenching final line of this film with a conviction that is easily the scariest element of the plot.
The film is expertly crafted, setting up fascinating breadcrumbs for us to follow and ensures the mystery is solved early enough to allow us to soak in the fallout of this earth-shaking revelation. It’s a good twist and one of the best you’ll come across in recent mystery releases.
I will say that this project is not horror, and as someone who typically avoids horror films, the distinction matters in marketing a film. Caddo Lake is more of a mystery/thriller and spine-chilling without the need for jump scares or artistic gore.
This movie is gripping, and its big twist is incredibly compelling. However, I have a bone to pick with the ending.
This film has a superior ending — one swimming in hope, love, and gratifying payoffs. Of course, that is not the ending it chooses, and that’s understandable but unfortunate. Shyamalan is all about those bleak finales, even when the movie calls for something uplifting. Caddo Lake would have been better off as the outlier that broke the mold.
That said, the final act is hardly a letdown. It brings the film full circle, taps into the emotions threaded through these excellent performances, and leaves us with finality. There are certainly worse ways to wrap up a story.
However, there is a moment in the third act when you realize where the premise is leading and hope it will segway into something more unexpected for both the genre and this premise. In this case, the film’s horror branding holds the panic-driven mystery back from an ending that successfully taps into the satisfaction it is building to.
It doesn’t hurt to be a romantic and lean into the happier ending, especially if it serves a better story purpose. Regardless of the outcome, this film still finds ways to instill delight in other ways with stellar performances and a compelling story.
In conclusion, Caddo Lake is an excellent mystery, and we need to give Dylan O’Brien all the roles.
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Caddo Lake premieres October 10 on Max.
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