Fearful Inequalities: Brea Grant's "Lucky" unmasks gender dynamics with a horror that unmasks deeper societal fears

Lucky - Brea Grant - 2020

★★★★★-A seemingly typical home-invasion thriller takes a twisted turn, revealing a much more unsettling and enigmatic narrative. Lucky is not just another horror movie. It delves deep into profound themes, exploring violence against women, trauma, and gender-based assumptions. 

Gist is a self-help relationship author who isn't selling and her dude (a philosophy professor) have a supernatural psycho slasher “guy” come to their home and try to kill them every night. So this is in the trailer so no spoiler, but she doesn't know that this happens when the movie starts, though she has been married or whatever to this guy for however long. He knows what's up and is like, “oh, the guy, he tries to kill us every night; we better get to fighting for our lives.” Totally a mundane part of his day. This guy seems like a real turd, of course, but he is not the only one. As time goes by, we see all these shitty ways that her husband and those that write it off are terrible. “This has nothing to do with my husband,” she keeps saying. The most obvious metaphor I've ever seen, sure, also the reoccurring image of cracked glass, but the movie wants to be obvious. The slasher (who looks just her husband wearing a clear mask) is directing all this violence at her, you see. It is a part of her life and this dude treats it as normal. It's actually pretty powerful. 

Stars Brea Grant, who also directs, in the lead. Also, Dhruv Uday Singh as Ted (the husband), Kausar Mohammed as her assistant, Yasmine Al-Bustami as her sister-in-law, Leith M. Burke as her publisher, and Hunter C. Smith as "The Man". Mostly unknowns. One woman I recognized from the Rob Zombie Halloween movie. The one who played the PJ Soles role. Kristina Klebe is her name. I like her. She pops up in this type of horror flick from time to time. Most recently saw her in Brooklyn 45. 

Deconstructs a lot of the conventions of the genre. Also, as a man, I'm guilty of some of the things that these shitty people do in this movie. Obviously not to that extreme, but enough to know that I need to try harder. It's not often that a piece of media elicits real change. It's a metaphor for #yesallmen. i.e. there may be only one literal guy attacking her, but the other men share some of the blame for their part in "normalizing" it.

This is the biggest margin between the Tomatometer and the Audience Score on RT that I've ever seen. 93% among critics; 29% for us regular schmoes. Based on the trailer, I was thinking Happy Death Day or something like that. This is way, way more unsettling/disturbing than the preview makes it out to be. 

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the audience score is mostly reflective of the type of dudes the movie is saying might want to tone it down, show a little empathy, and acknowledge that what women go through is often terrifying in lots of shitty ways, and such. I get why it makes people so angry. Everyday misogyny is indeed horror.

I think it stems from self-important groupthink. Probably from the people that watch a movie that offends them because they are terrible/weren't raised right and shit on it because it challenges them. Critics get paid to critically think about this stuff. There is a reason we care about their takes, which obviously discourages groupthink. 

Overall, I loved it. The payoff near the end is insane and super powerful. From a scary movie perspective, it had a lot of suspense. A horror movie that makes you think and unnerved. Every dude should watch it.