User reviews

Director Roberta Findley, wife of cult legend Michael, directs yet another bizarre, cheaply made, vulgar film. This one, Lurkers, named for the dead that can be seen by some "lurking" about, primarily tells the tale of a girl having a bad home life in New York in an apartment house where she sees these lurkers. We are introduced to her in a somewhat inventive and at the same time crude opening sequence where the young girl, having just been verbally/physically abused by her mother, goes outside to play and while playing jump rope - the rope mysteriously entwines around her neck as the children idly smile and watch. A young woman who will be seen later in the movie arrives, and the rope stops. Quickly we move to the present when the young girl has turned into a young musician in love with a photographer. The film then relates this relationship - but to say any more would give away the plot. And I wouldn't want to do that to you - or would I(might save you!) I think of all about this film that I did like - and granted that was not much - was the story. It is somewhat talky and you soon know where it is going, but it has shades reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby with regards to the man-woman relationship and a future conspiracy. I even thought the end, reminiscent of The Sentinel, was just quirky enough to be interesting. The real problem with this movie is that it never can shake the cheap look and feel it has. This can be easily seen in the settings, the lack of good, quality actors, and the special effects(what few there are). Christine Moore plays the lead - and she is pretty - but beyond that nothing very special. She is better than virtually everyone else in the film. Findley also has some obvious, how shall we say, peculiar interests as we are shown various scenes suggesting sexual aberration of some kind and scenes suggesting sick violence with a sledge hammer. The film is not particularly gory though. One scene that stood out for me was a scene between two beautiful models - both highly attractive - disrobing and talking about the stock market. It has nothing to do with anything yet has an interesting humorous edge as well as other pluses aimed to peak one's interest.

Cathy (Christine Moore) had a pretty rough childhood as she saw her mother murdered. Even worse, she lived in a brownstone that had ghosts ("Lurkers!") coming out of the walls. Things look to be picking up though as she is engaged to Bob (Gary Warner), a photographer who runs his business with former model Monica (Marina Taylor). Of course, this is NYC and you know you can't trust anyone there. This is another of Roberta Findlay's late 80s horror flicks so you'll know what to expect if you are familiar with her work from that period. Not much going on here, although it did confirm my suspicions that the gateway to hell is located in Washington Heights. To her credit, Findlay does get some nice NYC locations in and there are a couple of effective dream sequences. These bits are a bit marred by the ghost girl with the New Yawk accent though. Ed French supplied the Lurkers and they look pretty good for a low budget production. Much of the cast returned for her next production, PRIME EVIL (1989).

After emotionally / psychically being abused by her mother, Cathy would hear tales that the lurkers would come and get her if she was naughty. These lurkers were ghostly figures that hanged around the apartment building and only she saw. While, playing with friends the skipping rope strangely finds itself around Cathy's neck with little concern from the other children. Then a mysterious lady shows up and everything goes back to normal. Then we skip 15 years into the present where Cathy is in a relationship with a photographer, Bob. They're happily in love, but there's something lurking under the surface and Cathy starts getting recurring nightmares of her traumatic childhood.

Roberta Findley might not have a great rep behind her films, but surprisingly I enjoyed "The Oracle", which made me grabbed this particular flick. The shame was that I didn't quite get into this shonky trash, despite an interestingly offbeat concept. Sadly I found it quite tough going as its terribly talky without really going anywhere with the idea. Sure, chat is fine, but when it strings you along and along with even more lifeless chitchat. The overall silliness of it shows up strongly that your hoping it would break out the madness, but it hardly eventuates. When it does. It's not for long, and back to pointless chitchat we go. Throw in plenty of redundant build-ups and odd stretches that fill like nothing more than fillers to pad out the running time. This only dragged out the slow pace even more. It should have been more fun than it was, as I found myself to be either bored or baffled.

The plotting of the flat story was a convoluted jumble (It skips in between a whole lot of elements) with many uneventful happenings. It's a nasty little item that doesn't explicitly show it, but it's grim and mean-spirited in nature. After a genuinely creepy and tight opening couple minutes when Cathy was a child and throw in some motherly love. Some inspired touches creep up here. It never seemed quite sure where to go and its poor execution shows it up immensely. The look and feel of it is quite amateurish and it can't seem to shake it or work around it without embarrassingly telegraphing to us.

Now it's better to leave the moronic script alone! While, the overwrought music score is quite a groaner and like something that would fit nicely in a silent film. The only real component technical aspect had to be that it was actually pretty well shot and caught the grimy locations. The acting was very indifferent and Christine Moore in the lead role was the only one to give a reasonable turn. Roy MacArthur had a bit a fun with his performance and lightened it up when on screen.

This forgettable, drab feature definitely squanders every opportunity to make something fulfilling out of this idea.

As one of veteran exploitation director Roberta Findlay's 1980s horror movies, "Lurkers" is overall dull and draggy for the most part. There just isn't much "horror" in it, and it moves along at too slow a pace, with characters who are largely uninteresting. It DOES have its creepy and disturbing elements, but it takes until the end for this movie to finally start getting more watchable.

Beautiful Christine Moore plays Cathy, a classical musician who as a child had seen her mother murdered, and had even almost died herself. She'd also seen ghostly individuals emerge from the walls of her bedroom. Now, 15 years later, she's engaged to supposed nice guy photographer Bob (Gary Warner), but strange things are now occurring, and she's reminded of her childhood home and traumas.

One thing that does give "Lurkers" some passing interest is the scene where two models, played by Ruth Collins and Annie Grindlay, converse about the stock market (!) while undressing. It has no relevance to anything else in the movie but is so unexpected that it's rather amusing. As for the rest of it, there may not be enough of value for rabid horror fans. Ed French supplies some enjoyably gruesome makeup effects, and there's a sadistic creep (Tom Billett) who chases women with a sledgehammer. The electronic music score by Walter Sear is unbelievably awful at some points. The acting is tolerable at best; Moore has some appeal even if she's not much of an actress.

Horror lovers may want to see this for completions' sake, but it's not exactly a must-see.

Five out of 10.

This movie, which is ostensibly a horror movie, fails on several levels: it does not make you care about what happens to the characters, it does not scare you, the atmosphere is not interesting. In other words, it's boring. A horror movie doesn't necessarily have to be really scary (most aren't), but it must NEVER bore you.

I quite liked Roberta Findlay's film "The Oracle" so I thought I'd give this one a go, especially as I thought the VHS cover looked quite cool. Sadly it turned out to be rather boring. It actually has quite a good storyline behind it, but is just done in a very boring way. Which of course means little gore and suspense, and too much talking.

I sort of like the cheap and dirty feel to it - I've always thought cheapness adds a murky atmosphere to horror flicks, take "Midnight" by John Russo for example. It's a shame Findlay didn't go for blood and gore over the "talky" bits as that would have made it much more watchable. Using better actors would also have lifted it out of boring mediocrity.

Overall, Lurkers may be of interest to those who collect rare horror flicks, but gore and suspense fans should stay away.

I read about Lurkers in the pages of "Fangoria Magazine." Always on the lookout for interesting horror films outside of the mainstream, I went down to a now defunct mom and pop video store not far from my home and rented Lurkers and a couple of other flicks. It was "get one free" day. Thank God for that fact as I would never, ever pay for Lurkers and you shouldn't either.

Lurkers is without doubt, the worst film ever made. It's not a "so bad it's good" deal but, "so bad it truly is a worthless peice of complete and total garbage that wasted film stock that could have been used on worthier projects" type of film. It's muddled script can't make up it's mind as to what it is. Is it a Horror film, a porno film (there are many gratuitous sex scenes, betraying the director's porno background), a tour of New York City (there is lots of padding featuring the main characters driving around the Big Apple), what is it? Who knows, certainly not the film makers. The film's pace drags on and on and on, seemingly with no end in sight. It's what the fast forward button was made for, trust me.

There is nothing, nothing even remotely entertaining about Lurkers. The gore, the naked women, nothing lives up this truly awful turkey. Do not waste your time trying to track down this film, it vanished for a reason. It's no good!

I watched this movie at eight o'clock in the morning after being awake for two days. The front of the box hardly looked promising, but when I read the summary on the back, (She's into her boyfriend, Bob. Just like he's into Satan!) I realized that I had to give this movie a chance. Honestly, it must be one of the worst movies I've ever seen (and I am a fan of Plan 9 From Outer Space). There is plot but hardly a point. The scene when Bob asks "Orange you forgetting something?" made the whole movie worthwhile as well as a few other choice words I'll leave you to discover. I would honestly recommending watching it while you are a little overtired because it provides some laughs and a lot of confusion. Be prepared to giggle and scratch your head at the dialogue and scenarios. I agree with the chap above and gave it a ten. It's cinema at it's worst and that's something to be proud of.

The premise of Roberta Findlay's "Lurkers" is certainly fascinating:the group of ghostly tenants are forced to spend an eternity in a creepy New York building.The main character,a violinist is terrorized by the Lurkers. "Lurkes" is an amusing late 80's horror cheapie made by highly prolific Roberta Findlay.The special effects are bad and there is no gore,but some scenes of child abuse are quite unsettling.There are few scenes of nudity,so I am not complaining."Lurkers" is a pure cheese with terrible acting and slow-moving script.If you enjoyed "Prime Evil" any other low-budget horror movie made by Roberta Findlay check this one out.6 out of 10.Just remember:Lurkers are NOT lurking.

This film is so bad... I've watched it sober and drunk in both states it still seems to follow the smallest and loosest concept of a plot ever. I gave it a 10 because it has to be deliberate, no film could use two women strippers for no... NO reason whatsoever have such a scary family and have offers of sex from grandparents.I've seen bad films (I watched the Siege) but this is a masterpiece crafted from excrement.

The lurkers of the title are malevolent ghosts who terrorise a woman by appearing regularly and sinisterly in her orbit. They seem to be in some way associated with a house she lived in as a child.

This cheap horror film was directed by Roberta Findlay who also delivered the comparably low-budget Prime Evil (1988) the same year. Findlay will probably be best remembered for her association in one of the most notorious movies of all time, Snuff (1976). She and her husband made an ultra-low-budget killer hippies movie in Argentina that riffed off the then very recent Manson murders, namely The Slaughter (1971). This movie was considered so bad it barely was ever released and winded up being bought by an 'enterprising' distributer and having the infamous snuff footage added on to the end...and the rest, as they say, is history. I am actually in the minority and genuinely enjoyed The Slaughter material from Snuff and so do have to give some respect to Findlay for being involved in that. Lurkers, on the other hand, is less memorable and is basically a passable-at-best ghost movie set in New York City. Nothing in it is especially good but it does entertain up to a point at least. Most memorable scene? Probably the bit where a couple of nude models chat expertly about the stock market.

New Yorker Cathy is haunted by visions of her murderous mother and a mysterious little girl. Good thing she has photographer Bob as an anchor. But for how long, given her horrific delusions.

The logic of this horror flick appears to be that if a spoonful is good, then a truck full has to be better. But it's not. The piling on of scenes, themes, and effects soon gets tedious. That is, how many kissy-faces do we need to show that Cathy loves Bob, or that Cathy is full of delusions if that they be, or that darkness can be dangerous. Too bad, because the basic idea of a hell-house has potential.

With a tighter script and more strategic use of effects, there's a good movie core lurking within. As it is, the producers appear unable to deal effectively with structure, and that includes color photography for its own sake. Now, I'm not up on post-70's horror films. But if you want to check out how similar material can be effectively done, check out Val Lewton's 1943 classic The Seventh Victim. That tight little B-film also shows why audience imagination is horror's most powerful source. And that's especially important given today's overpowering appeal of special effects.

IMDb says the film is from 1988, but the first thing you are going to notice about this one is that it looks much older than that. It starts off by setting up an interesting premise as a little girl is tormented by her mother, by the other children in the building she lives in and by strange specters that come out of the walls at night. However, once the film flashes forward to the young girl as a young woman about to be married the film moves at a very slow pace. Then as things begin to get revealed, you begin to realize that this is essentially a remake of the far superior "The Sentinel", only with no actors or actresses of note to be seen.

The story, as I have stated, basically is a rehash of "The Sentinel". Sure, there are changes, but at its core it is that film. You have a young girl who is tormented which is different and you wonder what is up with the one strange girl, but then as the film progresses and you get to that party you realize that the film is closely following the better film right down to the strange lesbian encounter. The ending differs, but is also kind of the same. The only reason I continued watching this film is that I was hoping it would reveal who the strange girl is that seemed out to torment and kill young Cathy (the main character) and who the strange lady is that seemed as if she was helping. Neither reveal really worked as I still was not sure about the girl and once you knew who the woman was, you pretty much knew where the ending was going.

So the film is not very original, the acting is not all that good, there isn't much in the way of gore and much of the nudity was of the extreme pointless variety and a couple of those times I could have passed on it. The interesting premise is wasted as they do basically nothing with it, instead copying an earlier and much better film. Still, it did keep me watching thanks to the opening, so in that way it at least help my interest for a little while anyway. Just not a film I am going to be watching again, anytime soon.

The Plot.

Cathys mother killed her father and tried to kill her when she was ten. Her younger brother, a priest, holds her responsible. Fifteen years later Bob manipulates a clingy, drippy Cathy into falling in love with him.

He lures her back to the apartment building of her youth for a so- called work party.

There, he and his business partner Monica and a few of their oddly pathetic friends hold Cathy hostage for a few hours before forcing her off the side of the building roof.

She becomes one of them, a 'lurker'. The building is supposed to be 'hell' and everyone born there is evil and is brought back there to die.

Cathy becomes one of the lurkers who floats around town warning other people who the baddies try to get back to the building - Bobs new girlfriend and Cathy's priest brother including.

This was supposedly filmed in Washington Heights, NY. A bunch of scenes are from Lincoln Center, however and many of the interior apartment shots don't resemble anything from Washington Heights.

It's really poorly directed lending support to my theory that women cannot direct. The story is fragmented and boring. This is supposed to be a cult movie but it has none of the kewl quirky exposition that real cult movies contain.

Given the director's past foray into porn, i suspect this movie had some mob money in it.

There's really nothing redeeming about this film. The acting is abysmal and the plot is not remotely interesting. Plus it's hard to follow.

Plagued with nightmares about her troubled childhood, Cathy (Christine Moore) looks forward to a more stable future with her fiancé, photographer Bob (Gary Warner). But how well does Cathy really know Bob?

This is the sixth film I have seen directed by Roberta Findlay and it might be the lousiest yet (even worse the the one that was ostensibly a porno). I think that, by now, it's fair for me to say that she's an untalented hack, and should have stuck to hardcore, where crap acting and a lack of narrative cohesion don't make that much of a difference.

With Lurkers, it feels like Findlay intention was Rosemary's Baby style paranoia-laced horror, where it is unclear whether the protagonist is losing their grip on reality or if something sinister is really afoot. It's a concept that sees the director way out of her depth, Findlay lacking the subtlety and finesse to weave a suspenseful tale of Satanic deception. The script is muddled, and Findlay's cast are terrible (especially the woman who plays Cathy's mother), which makes matters even worse.

The result is frequently unintentionally hilarious, the funniest moment coming as Cathy waits for Bob outside the building where she lived as a child: Cathy is menaced by a man with a sledgehammer, who is chasing a girl covered in blood (played by an 'actress' who can't even run convincingly). Cathy panics and legs it, encountering a stereotypical NY street gang with suitably menacing expressions, before arriving back where she started, in time to witness the man with the hammer squishing his victim's head. All of this is so clumsily handled by Findlay that it cannot fail to amuse.

The confusing ending-which sees Cathy lured to a party at Bob's studio where the guests reveal that they are denizens of hell-doesn't make a lick of sense.

2.5/10, rounded down to 2 for the sign seen in a car park entrance that says 'No Audi 5000's': the unnecessary use of a possessive apostrophe annoys me.

I remember this movie from years ago. I saw it and then kind of forget about it. Now re-watching again, I remembered all the craziness. The weird scenes and creepy characters.

I have to be honest here, I enjoyed it more for all its 80s craziness, but The Sentinel did it better.

There were some very creepy scenes, the one with the little girl was very effective, What did get in the movie's way, was lack of a coherent story. There were scenes that seemed to almost belong in a different film. Okay to be fair, it did all come together at the end, but it was still distracting.

This is definitely an 80s gem, but more for its weirdness that anything else. Still it is worth watching just to day you have experienced it.

Weak performances, badly written script, weak make-up FX... just as usual in all these late '80s low budget productions.

This film freaks me out. It's cheaply made and incoherent but the muddle created disturbed me. Stripping, granny sex, lesbianism are all given a nod to. The stunts seem too real, when a girl is strangled with a skipping rope I believed it. A film to watch with your mates and a drink. Surreal content.

Lurkers (1988)

BOMB (out of 4)

Poor old Cathy is being haunted by ghosts who seem to want revenge over the acts that happened in her childhood. Many years ago poor Cathy was the victim of her mothers abuse, which in turn lead to her mother killing her father and eventually killing herself. Cathy continues to be haunted by this and apparently the ghosts that also haunt the apartment building. Now Cathy is all ready to be married but her fiancé insists that she visit her brother who just happens to hate her due to the parents. By doing this Cathy gets closer to the building where all of this terror took form. Yawn.

Here's another contender for one of the worst horror films of the decade. While watching this film I couldn't help but regret loving this genre so much. Unlike other bad horror films, sadly this one isn't bad enough to fall into the "so bad it's good" category and once again, by the fifteen-minute mark I was starting to think about scratching my eyes out. The director certainly forgot to use a script but he was smart enough to try and keep my eyes in my head by throwing out some nudity but even that didn't help.

This movie is pure amateurism all the way through and it appears the director simply raised some cash and fired friends to do the roles not once considering if they could actually act or not. There are so many bad things in this film that they get so annoying one can't help but wish their fate is coming soon. Just check out the incredibly stupid scene where the two lovers feed one another pizza. Was this supposed to be romantic? If so, pizza lovers beware because you might not ever look at a slice of pepperoni the same way again. There's even a cute little scene where our female hero encounters some street gangs, which were apparently leftovers from Death Wish 3. It goes without saying the film offers no scares, no good gore effects and nothing else for that matter. Instead of watching this film I'd recommend you get some exercise by watching your grass grow.