Lucky

I saw this film on Shudder, titled "It's A Secret", so I knew to expect something off the beaten path from a typical horror film. The constant looming presence of the silent killer has a very Michael Myers-esque approach to an abstraction of the turmoil the protagonist faces as she (Goes) It Alone with some fairly well-put together kills along the way, but the climax isn't one for anyone who expects clear answers. I had to stop treating this film as a standard film with a beginning, middle, and end (?) and instead focus on the way she deals with the killer rather than expect any explained reasons why he's there. It gets surreal towards the end, but I can't say I disliked it.

I forced myself to see it through the end. But I was bored with it.

The killer mask is cheap. It has little horror effective elements. It is more psychological drama than horror movie. The cool mystery about the loop quickly disappeared. It was hard to care for the main character. I liked the first 20 minutes, and the last 20 minutes because there was finaly some progress. Didn't like the generalisation it gives about men. If you liked the 2019 version of Black Christmas, may be this one is for you.

1. Poor or non-existent forensics reduced the credibility of the story.

2. Like a poor teacher the storyline does not direct the audience into thinking about the issue of fear, but instead has us asking what's going on. The focus was on knives, hammers, blood on floor, bodies gone.

3. Bodies disappearing opens many interpretations some of which are nonsensical which added to the confusion. Was she hallucinating; a metaphor; ghosts/spirits?

4. The poor response to securing the home & ways of protecting one's self gives us another female victim character as helpless & lacking intelligence.

5. Even the DVDs special feature of production staff audio commentary overlay said nothing about the story itself, but only camera angles, lighting, etc.

I really like the concept of this movie. I saw it described as kafka-esque and that's fair. I also especially appreciated the physicality of The Man--great slasher movie articulation. However, the movie's message is a mess. It's neither subtle or blatant in a consistent way, and I think it was meant be disorienting but mainly comes off as poorly hashed out. The main character is another weak part of the concept, made even more rough by the fact that she's portrayed by the film's writer, leaving little room to think it wasn't acted exactly as intended. May isn't likeable or smart, and portraying people trying to help (especially social workers) as useless and dumb isn't a great look. Also, muddling the luck-fear message with the (paraphrasing) "I'm not lucky, I'm great" insert line to the publisher was painful. Finding a solid publisher who will let it ride after your commonplace self-help book bombs is pretty lucky. All writers go through the process she rants about, and luck most certainly plays a part. Lucky isn't awful, but what I believe hurts it the most and contributed to the wealth of bad reviews is that it could have been a phenomenal film.