Written by: Victoria Osborn
“Lantern’s Lane” written and directed by Justin LaReau {‘A Demon Within’, ‘The Escape’}.
It starts out with upbeat music as you watch a red car driving down the veryn long road until she parks at a bar called “Suds” that is run by “Uncle Harold” (Skip Howland {Nash Bridges}), The waitress, Missy (Ashley Doris {Looking for Mr. Wonderful}) , his niece, is excited that her friend Layla (Brooke Butler {A Day to Die}) has finally come to see her after 2 years of being away. (She only lives a couple hours away). They have awkward small talk that seems forced with no chemistry at all. Their friendship does not feel believable. Missy asks Layla to talk to her ex bf, Braxton (Robbie Allen {Hellblazer}), who did an amazing job with his character. This is one of the more believable characters in the full movie. Braxton and Layla have a very cumbrous conversation that would be expected if you are forced to talk to your ex, and he has to go. We get it.
Missy talks Layla into drinking some shots then Layla notices a girl at the bar with her mother. “Who is that girl? “ she asks Missy and we find out that it is Shana (Sydney Carvill {Adalynn}) one of the young girls that she and Missy used to tease and bully in school, causing Shana’s sister to commit suicide. Missy tells Layla “she lost 30lbs after Haylee (Shana’s sister)…” and she shows her wrist and pretends to cut them… “well Shana is actually really cool”. Yikes!
Soon Shana and her mother, Janet (Lisa Roumain {Avatar}) come over and are invited to stay. Mom says she has to get some sleep and tells everyone to be safe after reminding Layla of her Homecoming embarrassment. Was that a passive-aggressive snide remark or just another socially awkward conversation with someone that barely knew her?
Missy needs to “get back to pretending to work” and leaves Layla alone with Shana as they have more awkward conversations that are centered around Shana talking a lot about her dead sister. Oddly, Layla never even so much as apologizes that the young lady is dead and really shows very little interest in the conversation. Trust us, we are not interested either. Suddenly, her friend Jason (Andy Cohen {Ray Donovan}) arrives. Missy comes back with a bunch of drinks that apparently were bought by their old teacher, Mr. Hansen (Justin LaReau) who comes over and creepily stands there for far too long before exiting the scene.
Missy is trying to get everyone to party like they used to and says they should make it a regular thing since the city is only 2 hours away. Then when Layla turns her down saying there is no way she could take “Sud’s every weekend”, Missy suggests taking some beer and going to “the Lane” like they did when they were kids. More cringe-worthy conversations and they finally agree to go, in which Missy yells out “Girls Night” even though Justin is going and she is going to text Braxton to join them.
Immediately you detect something off about Shana. She clearly has an agenda, but what? Is she just trying to fit in with the “popular” kids from highschool or is she out for revenge for her dead sister or maybe she is just trying to hook up with Jason? We do not know, but we can tell something is going on there.
As they pull out we are made aware of another vehicle that is pulling out after them. If that vehicle is following them, they would have noticed since it is at night – at least you would think.
They get to this place and Jason scares them by sticking his hand in a mailbox. Really? But did ya jump?
They spend way too long deciding who was to get out of the car to get the beer in the trunk. As the beer was being grabbed out of the trunk, Layla heard a twig snap. After a very long time having one-dimensional conversations in the car and trying to see a lantern move, they decide to go take a quick peek at the house and talk some more about whether or not they will go into it. They pull up closer and when Layla wants to leave the car doesn’t start. Scary music plays as they decide to go into the house and walk around the house looking for a way in. Jason steps in poop and takes some off with his finger to smell it, who would ever do that? Magically a key turns up and they get into the house. Way more bad conversations that felt forced, fake and melodramatic. Time for a confession…
Not everything is what it seems… but is it a prank or something much more sinister?
Sometimes as a reviewer you run into a moment where you want to give a good review because you never want to be ‘that person’, and you look for something that was amazing even in the worst of situations. This movie felt like it was rushed, to be honest. The story was very predictable, and should have been edited better before going to film. The script had lines that just was not a believable conversation and at times it felt like they added stuff to get it to be the right length. The actors, while each in their own rights are fine actors, in this film they did not have the chemistry needed to make their friendship seem genuine. At times the actors looked a bit lost on what they should be delivering for the audience. The main character, Layla, felt like a deer in headlights throughout the film. The movie was nearly three fourths the way over before anything resembling ‘horror’ really happened and even at that point it was a bit forced and unbelievable.
The music composed by Keith Sterling is truly the best part of this film.