The Lurker

Lets be real here , the acting was rubbish , including Taylor - Compton , most of the cast wouldn't even be suited to act as extras in a zombie movie. Secondly who wrote this movie , it was ok ish until the part where they went to the party at Romeo house , the writing just went down hill from there , I mean seriously who leaves the safety of all there friends in the living room to go snooping through the house of the boy she hates . And who decides to split up in the woods at night on a stupid treasure hunt . Its like whoever produced this movie did everything in there power to make sure it sucked . I gave it 3 stars because the story itself was ok ish.

During the production of a play at a high school in the Chicago area, theater students and members of the faculty are preyed upon by a mysterious lurker in a bird's beak plague mask.

"The Lurker" (2019) was described by producers as "an ode to 80's slashers," which is true, but it has more in common with "Scream" from the mid-90s, walking the balance beam between serious slasher and semi-parody. Remember Henry Winkler's weird principal? You'll get the same curiously hammy performances with the drama club teacher and the father at the party house. You also get the unnecessarily mean-spirited characters with a few exceptions, like the interesting long-haired janitor.

Scout is, of course, a highlight as the protagonist. She was soon-to-turn 30 during shooting and barely acceptable as a 17-18 years-old student, but this isn't exactly uncommon in filmmaking seeing as how Roddy McDowall played a high school student when he was 36 in "Lord, Love a Duck." Petite Kali Skatchke is another standout in the feminine department as Emma. There are a couple of other notables, but the director unfortunately didn't know how to shoot women (no pun intended) in the manner of, say, the original "Friday the 13th" or "Slumber Party Massacre II."

The story is a whodunnit and the revelation at the end is good; proficient writing on that front. The gore's well-done as well, for those who care. Unfortunately, there are some technical issues, like questionable dubbing and editing, which offers a kind of off-kilter viewing experience and smacks of inept or low-rent filmmaking.

Despite my criticisms, it's entertaining enough to make it worth checking out for fans of the genre.

The movie is short 'n' sweet at 1 hour, 14 minutes. It was shot in Chicago.

GRADE: C-/C.

This movie does not even deserve a review, because it's on the level of a high school project, where all of the "actors" and "actresses" were cast off the street and randomly given roles, some of them deciding to ham it up like an absurd comedy. The lead actress looks to be the age of the mother of the classmates, there's an entire generation gap between her and the rest of the students. The acting is tone deaf, amateurish, emotionally devoid, and on the verge of character breaking. Scenes just suddenly lurch forward with every cut, with no regard to tone, setting, or logic. The dialogue is either banal, on the nose, pointless, or senseless (in the case where the lead refers to a clearly normal human killer as "something") To top it off, the audio is quickly slapped together, with several places where ambient audio is simply missing, as characters are speaking with no sound, sentences are cut off between scenes a couple times, some voices are omnipresent, while sometimes a person's voice audio will be louder than the others. It's movies like these that IMDB should have a 0 rating, because this isn't a legitimate feature film, it's a group project where even the people involved will be embarrassed to see again.

The Lurker is oddly titled as everything is pretty straight forward once you understand what the plot is. The structure of the movie is to keep you off guard as you aren't certain what the cast is talking about in terms of what is known about the main character. Bt about half way through, it's pretty ovbious what is happening and what's the "secret."

The cast is decent even though they are much too old to be high school seniors. They do the "mean girl" well enough, and creepy toxic male efficiently enough. But, this can't compensate for the tepid plot and twist, as well as the unsuccessful ending. Instead of continuing their attempts for intrigue, the ending simply showcases the base impulse of the characters. Well how not fun this is.

Mediocre production with basic plotting, and mostly adequate acting make this tolerable, but at the end, this wasn't worth the time spent watching.

I like slashers and I wanted to give this the benefit of the doubt because I like the lead actress. Scout Taylor-Compton (Rob Zombie's Halloween movies, Cynthia, Feral) stars as a high school student and yes, she is very, very clearly too old for her part. But I was willing to let that slide because I like the actress and let's face it, this is a movie set at Crystal Lake High. You shouldn't expect much, just some dumb slasher fun. Unfortunately, it doesn't even deliver on that.

Taylor-Compton is good in her role and it's actually one of her better parts. She's starring in the school production of Romeo and Juliet and is popular but has some problems. Her play's director hates her, she has a weird relationship with her mom's boyfriend (and honestly she only looks about four years younger than either of them), and she has a dark secret the movie is constantly alluding to. And she's pregnant, which is given away in the trailer.

That's all well and good. What sucks is how incredibly slow this movie is. It's really structured more like a high school melodrama with the kills few and far between. The movie is just dull and by the third act when things actually start happening, I was already pretty checked out. Considering how short this movie is, it's incredible that it still feels so boring and drawn out. I only recommend it for Scout Taylor-Compton's most die hard fans.