Lantern’s Lane is a 2021 American horror film about a college graduate and her high school friends who return to the titular location.
Written and directed by Justin LaReau (A Demon Within). Produced by Syuzanna Avetisyan, Lydia Cedrone, Chi-Yang Chiu, Eleonora Grilli, Justin LaReau, Tianyue Li, Junhao Ma, Sijia Ma, Sim Sagiroglu, Nicole Shan and Joshua M.G. Thomas.
The Tidal Wave Entertainment production stars Brooke Butler (A Day to Die; The Remains; The Sand; All Cheerleaders Die), Andy Cohen (Tales from the Hood 2), Ashley Doris (Flight 666; Sinbad and the War of the Furies; Little Dead Rotting Hood), Lisa Roumain, Skip Howland and Sydney Carvill (Killer Escort; Sorority of the Damned; Dark Cycle).
Our review:
Lantern’s Lane is a baffling film. It sets itself up as a horror film but delivers hardly anything even vaguely horrific during its half. Production values are fine, the good-looking cast act ok and there are some mild attempts to create suspense but it’s all so, so vapid.
When the slasher element finally kicks in it’s still painfully generic. The movie appears to have been misrepresented as a comedy because some of its characters initially assume the killer is playing a prank which clearly isn’t the case. The only jokes here are how such an uninspired production managed to get financed, made and distributed.
Other reviews:
“Lantern’s Lane suffers from unoriginality […] Not only does it take too long to get going, but when it does, there are a little too many false jump scares that lessen the effect of any actual fright that might happen later on. The actors do well with the material, but are let down by the stretches of logic and – particularly in the climax – unreal injury endurance!” Starburst
“The action is very slow to get started, so much so that we’re still waiting for scares at more than halfway through the running time. The few attempted jump scares are ineffective. Once the horror does start, the previous half’s attempted misdirection leaves us feeling flat. And the villain that comes to call doesn’t inspire much terror.” UK Film Review
“… another pile of cliches. The script is almost entirely devoid of imagination and plays like the syllabus for Stalk and Slash 101. And that extends to both the identity of the killer and the attempts to misdirect the audience about it.” Voices from the Balcony
Release:
In the USA, Lantern’s Lane will be released by Vertical Entertainment theatrically in select locations and On-Demand (VOD) on November 5th 2021.
Cast and characters:
Brooke Butler … Layla
Andy Cohen … Jason
Ashley Doris … Missy
Lisa Roumain … Janet
Skip Howland … Harold
Sydney Carvill … Shana
Justin LaReau … Mr Hanson
Robbie Allen … Braxton
Lydia Cedrone … Loretta
Danel Azimova … Waitress
Filming locations:
Los Angeles and Sonora, California
Technical details:
95 minutes
Trailer:
Clip:
