Lurkers

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.