Lucky Bastard (2013) Review

Lucky Bastard (2013) Review

The found footage sub-genre is tired, to say the least, with the endless sequels to Paranormal Activity and the third Blair Witch movie having come out in recent years, but there’s one original found footage film which flew completely under everyone’s radar, including my own, and that is Lucky Bastard. 

A porn director holds a contest on his website where a winner (a “lucky bastard”) will get the chance to have sex with a porn star on camera. He finds a seemingly innocent guy who is more than game, and famous porn star Ashley Saint is ready for her close-up (and paycheck), though weary of the whole situation. Things go wrong, and the bastard flips out, with the whole violent ordeal caught on camera. 

The premise for Lucky Bastard is intriguing. The thing I always get hung up on with these found footage films is the reason to film everything in the first place. The best found footage films are able to conjure up a logical reason, and though Lucky Bastard isn’t one of the best, the reason for filming does make sense. The house they take the “lucky bastard” to is fitted with hidden cameras, to capture all of the “action”, because the house is often used as a filming location for other porn videos. 

You’d think a horror movie about porn would be loaded with sex, but it’s actually not. While there are some sex scenes, and characters are nude for extended periods of time, surprisingly enough it feels minimally exploitative. There’s never any kind of money shot, which makes the whole thing feel a bit more realistic (which is the whole point of found footage, anyway), but the amount of nudity meant there was no way the movie could earn any rating except NC-17, which automatically excludes it from a wide theatrical release—likely the reason it’s been so underseen.

The performances are decent, with Betsy Rue as Ashley Saint being the standout. She previously appeared in the My Bloody Valentine remake, for which she also got completely naked. The movie starts out with an interesting opening scene, but then takes a while to get going. Once the lucky bastard starts in on his evil-doings, it gets better, but never really amounts to anything truly thrilling or scary.

In the end, Lucky Bastard is likely going to hook you with its very modern premise more than anything. It offers a look inside the world of internet porn, through a horror movie perspective. It’s not a bad found footage film, nor is it exceptional, it falls somewhere in between, but will probably suffice for anyone interested in this type of horror and/or content.