Andrea Tivada, Collin Goodwin, Eleanor Williams, Emily Hall, Eric Roberts, Gino J.H. McKoy, horror, Ken Lawson, Lumina, movies, Rachael Mellen, reviews, Rupert Lazarus, sci-fi, science fiction, Sidney Nicole Rogers
July 19, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Gino J.H. McKoy
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in Morocco, the sci-fi/horror film “Lumina” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A man and three of his friends look for his missing girlfriend, who disappeared from his home under mysterious circumstances.
Culture Audience: “Lumina” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching extremely low-quality movies.
The sci-fi horror flop “Lumina” is a pathetic mess of sloppy filmmaking and cringeworthy acting. This incoherent story, which is about a woman’s disappearance that is linked to outer space, gets worse as the movie sinks into a void of irredeemable idiocy. “Lumina” is the type of stinker that’s destined to end up in shows or lists that make fun of terrible sci-fi movies or the worst movies of the year.
Written and directed by Gino J.H. McKoy, “Lumina” is his feature-film directorial debut. It’s the type of movie that was made because the director and some the director’s family members paid to get it made. The producers of this dreck movie are Gino J.H. McKoy, Lynda McKoy, Hudson McKoy and David Seychell. It’s hard to imagine real movie producers with credibility wanting to get involved in this hopelessly amateur-looking junk.
“Lumina” has more science fiction than horror. The horror part of the movie doesn’t really kick in until the last third of the film. By then, it’s a lost cause. The visual effects in “Lumina” are so cheap-looking and tacky, it makes a lot of no-budget YouTube videos look like masterpieces in comparison.
“Lumina” actually starts off looking like a boring soap opera instead of a sci-fi horror thriller. The opening scene shows a man in a space suit walking around on what appears to be another planet. Who is this person? Where is he? And why? The movie answers those questions in the last third of the story. In the meantime, it’s a slog to get there with many scenes being absolutely unnecessary or making no sense.
After the scene with the spacesuit man, the movie then abruptly shifts to six months earlier. At a Los Angeles mansion, wealthy trust-fund heir Alex (played by Rupert Lazarus) is having a house party. It’s mentioned later in the movie that Alex doesn’t have a job. He just lives off of his trust fund. (“Lumina” was actually filmed in Morocco.)
Alex and his attractive blonde girlfriend Tatiana (played by Eleanor Williams) are in love and happy with each other. However, because Alex has the personality of a slug, you have to wonder what Tatiana sees in him. It must be his money. But there’s trouble in a paradise for this couple because of a jealous person in a love triangle.
Alex has a platonic friend named Deliah (played by Andrea Tivada), who is in love with Alex and wants him for herself. Alex has a hanger-on living with him named Patricia (played by Sidney Nicole Rogers), who doesn’t have a job either. Patricia is a platonic friend of Alex’s, but it’s unclear what led to Patricia living with Alex. It’s implied that she’s a freeloader.
Patricia is a close friend of Delilah, who asks Patricia to help her in spying on Alex and Tatiana. Don’t expect to find out what any of these so-called friends do with their lives or how they met. None of that information is mentioned in this poorly written movie.
At the house party, Patricia tells Delilah will just have to “learn how to share” Alex because Alex won’t break up with Tatiana. Delilah won’t accept that advice. Delilah says to Patricia: “He thinks he loves her, but he doesn’t. He’ll be better off without her. Actually, I know he’ll be happier.”
Almost all of the dialogue in this movie sounds like it was spit out by a third-rate artificial intelligence program. The stiff and unnatural acting in “Lumina” isn’t much better. There are robots that could be more believable than the human cast members who show a sorry display of acting in “Lumina.”
As the party ends and the guests have departed, something strange happens in the living room where Delilah and Patricia are sitting on a couch: Liquid in drinking glasses starts to float in the air. Tatiana is outside near the swimming pool when there’s a huge flash of light. Suddenly, Tatiana has disappeared.
A frantic Alex looks everywhere for Tatiana but can’t find her. And so, Alex calls police to report her as a missing person. Here’s how bad the “Lumina” screenplay is: When a cop shows up to interview Alex and asks him to describe Tatiana, Alex only gives this vague description: “5’8″, 130 [pounds], long hair, beautiful eyes.”
Alex doesn’t mention Tatiana’s hair color or eye color. And the cop never asks. The cop doesn’t ask for a photo of Tatiana, nor does Alex mention giving a photo of Tatiana to help with the search for her. The stupidity doesn’t end there.
While all of this turmoil over Tatiana’s disappearance is going on, Delilah and Patricia are still sitting on the couch. Alex walks into the room right at the moment that Delilah can be heard listening to a recording she made on her phone where Delilah says repeatedly, “I wish that bitch would disappear.”
Alex immediately has a meltdown because he knows Delilah is talking about Tatiana. He yells at Delilah: “Why would you say that?” He then shouts at Delilah: “This friendship is over! Get out of my house!” Of course, this won’t be the last time that Alex and Delilah see each other.
An unspecified period of time has passed when the movie then abruptly cuts to the next scene, which shows a forlorn Alex with a very shaggy beard. Alex mopes around his house and stares off into space a lot because he’s depressed about Tatiana, who’s still missing. A talkative and hyper acquaintance of Alex’s named George (played by Ken Lawson) shows up at the house and immediately starts spouting conspiracy theories about alien abductions. Alex starts to believe him.
George is friendly with Alex but apparently doesn’t know Alex very well, because when George arrives at the house, he’s surprised that it’s a mansion. George is a nerdy creep who often makes inappropriate comments. He’s immediately attracted to Patricia and lets her know it. This is George’s idea of flirting with Patricia: He tells Patricia within minutes of meeting her to take off her clothes. George means it as a joke, but it’s still a boorish thing to say. Patricia lets George know that she thinks he’s kind of repulsive.
The rest of “Lumina” stumbles around from scene to scene, as Alex, Patricia, George and Delilah (who convinces Alex to let her hang out with him again) search for Tatiana. The scenes get weirder more irritating. Some characters show up in the movie but have no real purpose or bearing on the plot before they go away and are never seen again.
George introduces the three pals to another conspiracy theorist named Thom (played by Eric Roberts), who hangs out in a cave-like structure with some control board equipment that looks like throwaway props from an outdated sci-fi movie. Roberts gets top billing in “Lumina,” but he’s in this two-hour movie for less than 15 minutes. Roberts’ mumbling performance is the very definition of “phoning it in,” because he looks like he could care less about embarrassing hmself in this terrible movie.
There’s a part of the story where Alex and his pals go to Morocco to visit Tatiana’s parents Teresa (played by Rachael Mellen) and Martin (played by Collin Goodwin), who have some information about Tatiana to tell Alex. Why did Alex have to go all the way to Morocco to get this information? The parents insist that they can only tell Alex this information in person.
One of the most mind-boggling and time-wasting scenes in “Lumina” is when Alex, George, Patricia and Delilah encounter a couple named Sonny (played by Mohamed Nmila) and Chere (played by Emily Hall) at night in a remote area with a shallow pond near some rocks. (Don’t ask.) Chere strips down to her underwear and wades in the pond. She takes Alex by the hand and gets him to also remove his outer clothing and go in the pond with her.
Chere tells Alex, “You need to be invited, like we were invited.” Delilah predictably gets jealous and call Chere a “bitch,” which seems to be Delilah’s go-to word for a woman she sees as competition for Alex’s attention. Delilah and Chere almost have a catfight as Delilah pulls Alex away from this “temptress.” Don’t expect this scene to explain anything.
It’s at this point in the movie when you know that the “Lumina” filmmakers absolutely did not care about having an entertaining story and just threw some stupid ideas together and called it a plot. “Lumina” just exists to fulfill some people’s misguided fantasy of making a sci-fi horror movie that actually turned out to be an unintentional comedy because of how laughably bad everything is. Many viewers won’t be laughing though. The joke is on anyone who thinks “Lumina” is a good movie.
Goldove Entertainment released “Lumina” in U.S. cinemas on July 12, 2024.