The Lurker

6/20/2020

Scout Taylor-Compton and maybe like one of the other girls in this do a pretty good job, but **everyone** else is bad. I'd be lying if I said that I outright hated _The Lurker_, but it'd be an even bigger lie to say that it was any good. _Final rating:★½: - Boring/disappointing. Avoid where possible._

8/25/2022

The Lurker is a love letter to the slashers of yesteryear. Unfortunately, it's like the letters Viggo Mortensen writes to his wife in Green Book before Mahershala Ali starts tutoring him. The soundtrack consists of a stark synthesizer, and the name of the high school is Crystal Lake High; these two choices are a little too on the nose even for a 'homage', but it's the casting where the makers go too far – too far back in time, that is; they chose actors who were born in the 80's to play schoolboys and schoolgirls, for no discernible reason other than that was the era during which these films were at their peak. Taylor Wilson, the protagonist, is played by Scout Taylor-Compton, who is 31 years old – and not even a very youthful 31; when her character turns out to be pregnant it's a s

10/14/2024

**_Scout Taylor-Compton in a slasher akin to “Scream,” albeit low-budget_** 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 p