Benjamin Cooper on The Lurker
The Lurker was practically a last-minute idea I had for a film making assignment when I literally came up with it two days before shooting it. Looking back at it, of course, I would change several things about it, but who doesn’t look at their work that way?
The premise of this film came from the simple idea of… what if you are just minding your own business and some random person was pursuing you? I originally intended this film to be a serious horror thriller that followed our student as a serial killer followed close behind him. Thinking long and hard I made the last-minute decision to change it from a serious horror film to a semi-serious thriller comedy. I did not want the serious nature of the film to overshadow the comedic tone and vise-versa. So, I wanted the film to start out serious and gradually get more and more outrageous before the big reveal at the end.
As a fan of the 80’s aesthetic, I wanted to give the film a retro B-movie straight to VHS look. Since 80’s horror is my go-to film genre, I plan on making my films follow the aesthetic of how films used to look by giving them grain, VHS logo openings, as well as an 80’s inspired poster, without digging into Stranger Things. One final note, I refuse to watch Stranger Things simply because I feel that it ruined the 80’s aesthetic by commercializing it… before I did.