The Luring

This was an absolute waste of time. Please do not waste your time watching this horrible car crash of a movie. I cannot believe anyone would pay for this, I am so baffled how it even got produced . It was all jumbled and all over the place, the acting was extremely low, the scenes did not connect, nothing made sense. I have NO idea how one person in the reviews said they watched it 3 times, probably because nothing was making sense and they couldn't accept that fact.

Bad acting, a story line all over the place, characters you root for being killed off so you don't have to see/listen to them anymore. Completely disjointed ending. Rip-off of other horror elements.

We all know the cliche shot of a child letting go of a balloon, but this film makes the balloon to main villain. Could be an interesting idea.

The plot is very slow. The characters are unsympathetic. The villains aren't menacing.

Some of the visuals are genuinely creepy. The clown is a bit of an obvious choice, but it is creepy. They do some intersting things with the lighting during the conversations with the villain.

The movie is exceptionally poor in pretty much all aspects.

The acting pretty much gives away what kind of movie it will be from the start. The performance is akin to a high school play with nervous kids that force their lines and overact. The cinematography is not too bad, although that alone amounts to nothing in the end considering the convoluted and disconnected plot. You know how in a dream you are convinced certain things make sense but when you wake up you wonder how come you didn't see the glaring contradictions with reality? That's how this movie plays out. There is a multitude of cliche horror elements - an eerie red balloon, a psycho kid killer, children hurting children, mysterious plot device shadowy man, a toy of unknown significance which the camera zooms in on regularly, etc. etc. Events do unfold, but saying they are in any way coherently connected is like answering a math problem with "green". I wouldn't even call this one pretentious as to me this is simply a bad movie due to bad writing and directing.

This is the type of movie that will have a few people pretend to understand its "profound" meaning and will insist that it is so deep that nobody gets it but do not be fooled. Deep applies to this movie like "dry" applies to "ocean".

This is a movie that I suspect has a specific niche group of fans. I enjoyed it. there were confusing bits but overall, I was happy with my understanding of the story. I don't think this is a horror per se, but more psychological horror/thriller would be the way I classify this one. There are themes that are disturbing. That aside, there is a story here. Not sure if it was deliberate but there are clues and symbols scattered throughout the movie, which explain some things. This movie is weird, moody, dark, and interesting - and is comparable to the likes of Twin Peaks in the way it makes you feel as a viewer. Not everyone will like this, but there is definitely a niche audience that will enjoy this one.