LUMINA
(director/writer: Gino McKoy; cinematographer: Rachel Gallego; editor: Thom Noble; music: Gino McKoy; cast: Eric Roberts (Thom), Rupert Lazarus (Alex), Eleanor Williams (Tatiana), Andrea Tivadar (Delilah), Sidney Nicole Rogers (Patricia), Gino McKoy (Hazmat Man), Ken “If you love bad films, you’ll love this one.”Lawson (George), Emily Hall (Cher); Runtime: 113; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Gino McKoy, Hudson McKoy, Lynda McKoy, David Seychell; Goldove Entertainment; 2024)
“If you love bad films, you’ll love this one.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
West Indies born first time director Gino McKoy, also scripts, produces, provides a few songs and acts in this incompetent alien-abduction drama. The low-budget film has terrible special effects, gets stiff performances from its mediocre cast, and its story-line is moronic. This one rates with some of the worst films ever made. But, If you love bad films, you’ll love this one. There’s an audience out there for a film so terrible it can make you laugh hardest when it gets the most serious (it laughs are unintentional).
In the opening scenes, the romantic couple of rich boy Alex (Rupert Lazarus) and the beauty Tatiana (Eleanor Williams), live together in his mansion, along with his best friend Patricia (Sidney Nicole Rogers). As the lovebirds converse outside, they are interrupted by Alex’s ex, Delilah (Andrea Tivadar), who wants her man back. But there’s a further interruption by ‘lights in the sky’ that lift Tatiana into space, whereby she vanishes. This leaves Alex aghast, so he grows a beard. But when the authorities fail to help, he goes around to supermarkets in the area posting photos of his lady and asking for information on the abduction.
Then Alex, anxious to do something further, decides to go looking for Tatiana in Morocco. Patricia, Delilah, and his friend George (Ken Lawson) join him in this search. Don’t ask why he chose to go to Morocco, but I’m sure he had his reasons.
There’s also a meeting with the so-called alien expert, Thom (Eric Roberts, the only real actor in the film, who comes down to the film’s low level of acting). Thom lets on he has a spaceship in his shed, and that he’s worked with the secret government alien-abductions agency.
The film is so inept, it can’t even reach a resolution to this ridiculous plot. Instead it flounders around with awful dialogue, horrible music, and a plot with holes too gigantic to cover-up.
REVIEWED ON 7/16/2024 GRADE: D