Movie Review ~ Lumina

The curious cosmic unknowns of space have always held a peculiar fascination for filmmakers, often tapping into the deepest fears of an audience about extraterrestrial life.  In films like Steven Spielberg’s landmark Close Encounters of the Third Kind from 1977, Robert Lieberman‘s Fire in the Sky in 1993, and most recently 2022’s Monolith from director Matt Vesely, wonder and spine-tingling terror have existed in relative harmony.  I mention these three films specifically because they run the gamut from big-time Hollywood fare to tiny indie feature, demonstrating that it’s often the filmmaker’s execution and not their ambition that makes or breaks its success.

Execution and ambition collide disastrously in Lumina, a catastrophically terrible event that is somewhat miraculously being released in theaters.  Written and directed (and unfortunately more) by Canadian Gino McKoy, if you believe its Wikipedia page’s Production section (and oh, please do read it), this is the little sci-fi alien abduction truther film that could.  Shamefully marketed as a thrilling galactic mystery, it’s a 112-minute soap opera with characters that are a mix of mopey and dopey (and sleepy and grumpy), with a heavy dose of conspiracy theories for an added dose of eye-roll.   

Alex (Rupert Lazarus) and Tatiana (Eleanor Williams) are in love.  Like, touching faces, breathing in the scent of the other’s nail clippings kind of love.  On the night of a party at Alex and Tatiana’s home, their earthy roommate Patricia (Sidney Nicole Rogers) lounges around vaping, waiting for Alex’s pot-stirring ex, Delilah (Andrea Tivadar), to arrive.  Delilah barely has time to look Tatiana up and down and give Alex the side eye before Tatiana vanishes from the pool in a blinding light that appears to be a flashlight clicking on and off.  

After an obligatory beard-growing montage (because nothing says trauma like unkempt facial hair), Alex teams up with George (Ken Lawson), a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist spouting nonsensical dialogue recycled from a UFO GeoCities website McKoy had archived, and learns that aliens are out there.  Soon, they are making plans with Delilah and Patricia to trek through the desert to find who took Tatiana and why.  They’ll face challenges, unexpected dangers, a random sexy siren who will get Alex down to his skivvies for no reason, and meet a shadowy figure, played by Oscar-nominee Eric Roberts, Final Analysis, once again doing anything for a paycheck and a trip to Morocco.  What should be an epic quest to uncover life-changing truths quickly devolves into a journey that would make anyone opt for the alien probe instead.

Lumina’s screenplay is an utterly baffling mix of lines that are both cringeworthy and unintentionally hilarious.  I can understand where McKoy was going with creating a narrative around the theories concerning alien abduction, but you can’t generate dialogue from factoids without changing tense and punctuation.  The actors will be in the middle of a scene and suddenly drop a tidbit that acts like pop-up trivia culled from fanfiction.  It doesn’t help that most of these performers have slightly higher screen charisma than an ironing board.  Lazarus gives line readings that, unlike his name, stay dead and buried and I think Rogers’ vape smoke outperformed her in several scenes.

The special effects are straight-up Windows 98 screensaver, and that’s being kind.  The alien abduction, which should have been the film’s saving grace, fails to be terrifying and instead looks like they were put together in a rush with spare change that should have been used to launder a few of the costumes worn by the actors.  Filmed in Marrakesh and around the Atlas Mountains in the Moroccan desert (which at this point doubles as everything from the surface of a menacing planet to the outskirts of an abandoned strip mall), every aspect of the production screams, “My mom paid for this!” and not in a charming, indie way, but in a “so there!” way.

But the true pièce de resistance, by far the most bizarre of all, is the score, featuring songs written and performed by McKoy.  I had to wait until the end to confirm it was him, but I had a hunch early on when the characters spent an entire scene grooving to a grating tune that played in full.  His caterwauling makes one long for the sweet release of vaporization by laser blaster, proving that some sounds are better left unheard by human ears.  (For the brave, here is a link to McKoy’s video for “Sensy Girl” included in the film and which plays over the closing credits.)

This is a monumentally inept film, one that I can hardly believe some people will pay to see in theaters.  It’s one of the only titles I’ve ever given zero stars to on this site, and believe me, I don’t withhold even a half-star lightly.  It’s so bad that I consider it one of the worst movies I’ve ever endured.  If aliens are indeed watching us, as McKoy suggests in an end credit title card that’s barely been proofread, Lumina might convince them to steer clear of Earth altogether.  So perhaps this might save us from destruction in the end.