Lurkers was a film that I had always seen in my local video store as a child in the horror section. As I grew older I studied up on Michael Findlay which lead to me finding out about his wife Roberta. Well as I found out she continued to make films after his death, the first one that I read about was Lurkers, when I was in my teens, from a Leonard Maltin review which trashed the film.
This film is about Cathy (Christine Moore) who experiences many paranormal events where she continues to see a young girl who she used to know as a kid who died. She has various visions of dead people but naturally those around her just think she is paranoid. One that was really creepy was when a hammer toting maniac aptly named Leo ‘The Hammer’ (Tom Billett), chases a woman down New York streets trying to kill her. But we are not sure whether it is really happening or if it is one of the female protagonist’s visions. That one scene earns the film the extra half star as it is the only directorially inspired scene throughout the whole film and the only part that lived up to its horror label. The conclusion was vaguely interesting and kind of like a primitive Sixth Sense.
The script was terrible, and very corny. I don’t understand why Roberta agreed to film this movie from the script that was written. The plotting was even badly conceived and an ending that should have been surprising and grand, only came off as third or fourth rate. The acting is only impressive by the lead and Roberta sets up a couple of potentially good suspense scenes, which are ultimately let down by bad scripting and an incoherent plot. Not a very memorable film and disappointing for me being a fan of Roberta (well mainly Michael and Roberta together). The film ultimately suffers from not taking any chances and trying to play it straight and please all audiences. The only problem is that approach made the film acceptable by censorship standards, but boring by audience standards because nothing interesting happens. The film even fails to deliver in the violence quotient, so if it’s not scary and not violent then what sort of film is it? I can easily relate this film to watching paint dry while listening to an endless audio loop of Carrot Top’s comedy act. I guess both this film and that scenario are about as tediously irritating as each other.
Lurkers is one of eight films featured on Horrible Horrors Vol. 1, and naturally in this sort of compilation there are no special features which ain’t so much of a let down in this case.
