Hungarian filmmaker Demeter Lorant serves up the normalcy of creepiness with his 15-minute short film Lucky Girl, about a serial killer (Géza Benkő) who stumbles across three young women in a car accident and takes them back to his lair of horrors. Will any of them survive? 

Of course, you may be able to decide that for yourself given their character names - Dead Girl (Nikoletta Mucha), Unlucky Girl (Barbi Horvath) and, well, Lucky Girl (Nikolette Dekany).

It's the basic premise of Lucky Girl that may very well be the most disturbing thing about the film. Even here in America, for the most part when you see a car accident you either help or you slowly drive by gawking at the scenario like you've stumbled across a sideshow carnival. While I've seen a handful of cases where someone exploited the accident, for the most part even the most dysfunctional mind, excluding the paparazzi at a celebrity scene, would consider a motor vehicle accident off-limits.

So, really, the film starts off with a huge "What if?"

Lorant goes about building upon this "What if?" in a fairly matter-of-fact way. The serial killer's taking of the young women is, in fact, decidedly normal. The lair of horror? It's not particularly horrifying other than when D.P. Laura Csonka opts to focus the camera on one certain wall. The truth is, and I think the truth has always been, that the most horrifying things in life are often the most normal.

Lucky Girl is most horrifying at its most normal.

The film features music by Domokos Varga that is simple and straightforward, yet appropriately mood-setting and embracing of the atmosphere.

The recently completed Lucky Girl is just getting ready to begin its festival run. It should have no problem finding a home on the indie/underground or horror fest circuits.

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic