LUCKY (2021) – Consider yourself lucky if you give this a miss

The only reason why I chose to watch this movie against my better judgement was that it was actually given a decent review by the RogerEbert.com site. Being a horror fan, I am always on the lookout for a good horror movie which can be a challenging task given the number of junk that gets made under this genre. So, wow .. a three and a half star rating by a RogerEbert reviewer must mean something right? Wrong!!

The story starts off interestingly enough where we are introduced to our main character, May Ryer, who is the author of a best selling self-help book for women, called “Go It Alone”. She soon find herself facing an unusual situation of a man with a mask breaking in to her house in the middle of the night trying to kill her. This incident repeats itself every night, each time ending with the attacker being overcome by May but mysteriously disappears without a trace soon after. This recurring nightmare begins to feel like another Groundhog Day gimmick, and its repetition gets more and more boring and annoying as no further information of hints of what’s happening is offered. By the end of the movie, we are feeling exhausted by the repeated attacks which gets increasingly violent and incredible. The only thing left to save this movie at this stage, is for it to have a clever ending that explains what’s happening. Alas, the films abrupt ending does not provide any shred of pay-back to what had transpired in its mercifully shot running time of 83 minutes. For me, I was left feeling cheated like I had just lost 83 minutes of my life which I can never gain back. I put the blame on this disaster to Brea Grant who wrote this as well as play the lead. The film’s aspiration to be a metaphor of the challenges faced by women in society today, is poorly conceived. No thanks also to the unimaginative directing by Natasha Kermani. These are surely names for us to look out for in future works so we can avoid.

Amazingly, the reviewer at RogerEbert, Sheila O Malley seem to have it all figured out and went at length to explain the entire movie in the review without a hint of spoiler alert! Well, I shall go one step better. If you haven’t seen this movie and harbour any intention to watch it, my honest advice to you is DON’T!! Only then will you be able to truly savour the meaning of the film’s title “Lucky”. Otherwise, I would say the movie’s true title should be “Unlucky”.