A surprisingly confident and assured debut from first time director Alex Russell. The cinematography by Pat Scola (Pig, Sing Sing, A Quiet Place: Day One) is very competent and unexpectedly pretty. There’s a good deal of film grain throughout, and I can’t remember the last time a movie used cigarette burns (I counted this very old-school technique used at least twice in this). A good deal of this film deals with similar themes to those found in Saltburn, just minus all the excess, depravity, and sex.
Theodore Pellerin as Matthew, our protagonist, is very creepy and off-putting. He does the whole dead-eye, zoned-out, staring-intently-off-into-the-distance thing to a frighteningly effective degree. He also reminds of Keir Gilchrist, in so much as he feels like a person with high-functioning Autism. Sunny Suljic (The kid from The Killing of A Sacred Deer and Mid-90s all grown up) puts on a solid supporting performance as Jamie, friend to Matthew. Arguably it’s Archie Madakwe (Farleigh in Saltburn, Simon in Midsommar) who walks away with the film as Oliver, an up-and-coming singer. He shines most during the later acts of the movie.
Lurker does an effective pivot at the 59 minute mark. The film from that point on indulges in some great, interesting twists that play with the dynamics between Oliver and Matthew, and the way we view/see each character. Lurker is messed-up in a good way, and it does a pretty great job at keeping audiences on-their-toes and guessing for the majority of the run time. Equal parts predictable and unexpected, Lurker is definitely one worth checking out. For my money, the last 36 minutes are the best part of this movie. ‘Love and Obsession’, an original song featured during the final 10-15 minutes, is an absolute earworm as well.
4 STARS
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