It can be difficult to make an erotic thriller work because the nudity and sex can often already feel gratuitous. It’s easier for us as a viewer to see them as cheap or tacky; and due to the quality of those that compile the genre, they have a bad rap for bad writing.

However, Stranger By The Lake (2013), a French production that centres around a man Franck (Pierre Delandonchamps) who falls in love with Michel (Christophe Paou), an attractive yet dangerous man he meets at a cruising spot tucked away on the shores of the lake, hits different.

Franck knows that Michel is potentially lethal, but can’t resist his primal urges.

Though one viewer describes it as a “Sparse thriller with endless gay sex” (yes, apparently that’s bad), mostly it was well-received with many praising its cinematography.

Not only is the film still relevant today when too often we hear of gay hook-ups ending violently, but it explores the timelessness of loneliness and its juxtaposing sexual liberation in gay men. The film will definitely leave you with an inclination to go cruising… at first, anyway.

Get a glimpse into the lake that these gay men are obsessed with.

WATCH: Exclusive: Teddy Tores goes cruising in the Woods