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. 

Brooklyn 45 - Ted Geoghegan - 2023

★★-Pretty much completely takes place in the same room. Could have been a play , really. Don't see many high schools putting it on though, if you know what I mean. 

Something I always pay attention to is the difference between the Critic Score and the Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes. This is one of those major discrepancy movies. Critics Score: 89%; Audience Score: 56%. For horror, it often means its good but insanely fucked up. Almost always means that the movie isn't fun. This was indeed disturbing, and it was indeed not fun. 

Movie takes place on the night of Friday, December 27, 1945. Gist is five World War II veterans gather in the parlor of a Brooklyn brownstone owned by one Lt. Col. Clive Hockstatter who just lost his wife Suzy to suicide. They decide to have themselves a nice little post-Christmas séance to conjure up the vengeful spirit of the dead wife. Sounds like my kind of party. 

After the host makes contact with his wife, he blows his brains out in front of everyone. Just before he eliminates his map, he says “before you leave, you have to do something for me,” or something like that .Soon after, a German woman tumbles out of the closet. Turns out, Suzy, the dead wife, suspected this lady was a Nazi spy. “Hock” now won't let anyone leave until she's dead. 

I suspected the parlor was a personal Hell or something. Can't leave the room, possibly supernaturally stuck their with their demons with a potential real demon or ghost on the loose. Even say, “this is Hell, this room, and none of us are leaving until this Kraut is dead.” Everyone just does what they have to to survive and get out. That's the message of this one. Great. Just what I needed at this juncture.

Director, for his part, one Ted Geoghegan, also did the horror flicks We Are Still Here and Mohawk. Everyone in the movie is recognizable but not famous. See them pop up a lot in these Shudder movies, like this guy Larry Fessenden, who plays the guy who kills himself. He was also in Summoners, Offseason, Dashcam, Jakob's Wife, The Ranger, The Dead Don't Die, You're Next, and The Innkeepers. Dude does pretty much exclusively this type of horror. Others in the movie are Anne Ramsay who I recognize solely from A League of Their Own, Kristina Klebe who was one of the murdered girls in Rob Zombie's Halloween, and Jeremy Holm, who was the ranger in the horror flick The Ranger.The other two are Ezra Buzzington and Ron E. Rains who are familiar but unplaceable. 

All the characters are terrible and unlikeable, which is kind of the point. For example, one guy calls his “friend” a “faggot” and then tells everyone the guy was a “baby butcher.” Dude killed children, so, you know, he's a monster. The accused Nazi woman consoles him though, so it's fine. “You're not a bad man for following orders.” Yeah, she seems totally innocent. The Greatest Generation my ass. Also known as the “Me Generation,” they gave birth to the Boomers, a run that fucked up the country. 

Watch a lot of turds on Shudder, but occasionally I get one that is stellar. This was fine, I guess. But I wouldn't recommend it.