Director: Christopher Wells
Writer: Christopher Wells (Screenplay)
Starring: Molly Fahey, Michaela Sprague, Jake Katzman, Rick Irwin, Alex Emanuel, Daniel Martin Berkley
Plot: A man tries to recover a lost memory by returning to his family’s Vermont vacation home where an unspeakable act took place leaving him institutionalized as a child.
Tagline – Sometimes We Are Called To The Darkness
Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Slow Thriller
Story: The Luring starts when Garrett (Irwin) heads back to a Vermont vacation home with his girlfriend Claire (Sprague) to look into the memories that he can’t remember as a child, waiting to meet a mysterious woman Jennifer (Fahey) from the internet, that might fill in the gaps for him.
As the time away sees Garrett acting strangely with the visits from Jennifer, while seeing himself start to become distant from Claire, as his past starts to come back to him.
Thoughts on The Luring
Characters – Garrett grew up with a blank in his memory, he wants to try and fill in this gap, which sees him returning to a family vacation home with his girlfriend, he is getting tired of his girlfriend and as the memories return, we see the darker side of his character, the side which may have caused the memory blank. Claire is the girlfriend that is desperate to have a good weekend away, she loves Garrett and is willing to spend her life with him, even if she is already sensing the problems between the two. Jennifer is the mysterious woman that has been willing to help fill in the holes in Garrett’s memories, only for her to have a real reason for drawing him back to the town.
Performances – The performances in this film are not the strongest, as some characters do feel overplayed, while others don’t seem to break out, to make their character standout in anyway.
Story – The story here follows a man that is looking to fix the memories he has lost from his childhood, only for the truth to come out and haunt him more. This is a story that does do the memory needing refilled well enough, only we do seem to get two moments of story that feel completely out of place for the rest of the film. As the story unfolds, we do get to growing distain towards Garrett. We don’t seem to get into the full extend of what is causing everything to happen though, leaving a lot left to the imagination.
Horror – The horror side of the film comes from seeing how the noises can’t be explained, before we do see one terrifying figure.
Settings – The film uses the one main location, the vacation home, which has tragedy about it, it will create isolation for our characters through the film.
Scene of the Movie – The stilts.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The two scenes which seem disconnected to the main story.
Final Thoughts – This is a horror thriller that doesn’t seem to use the ideas of memories being lost, to create everything, only for most things to end up missing, with exception of the stilts character being truly terrifying.
Overall: Thriller that doesn’t hit all the marks.
