Lure (2026) Review
Prepare to be ensnared in a killer cult nightmare, written and directed by Oliver Cox, as bold and blood-soaked new British horror Lure, which fuses the cutthroat courtship of The Bachelorette, with the high-stakes survival of Ready or Not, gets its UK debut.
A wealthy, ruthless heiress believes her bloodline must be preserved at any cost, she curates a shortlist of six seemingly eligible bachelors, each selected for their suitability to father her future heir. She invites the unwitting victims to her remote ancestral estate, but the guests are unaware of the horrific and gruesome games that await them. With escape impossible, each man is tested to their very limits and must decide how far they are willing to go to survive and whether winning is even worth the cost.
Low-budget horror/thriller Lure draws on elements from SAW (it even has scene that nods to the original movie’s ‘sawing through one’s ankle to survive’ climax) and TV’s The Traitors by having a woman circle a table of contestants all of whom are possibly up for murder. It mixes up elements from both into an undercooked concoction that becomes more wearing as it goes on.
There is a neat idea at the core of Lure, but it is never fully realised as the script is not up to the task of delivering the thrills – the games that our ‘contestants’ play are never fully convincing and feel half-baked – and consequently I was unable to buy into the concept. A game cast give it their all, but the film itself is never sure what it wants to be, throwing a mix of ideas into the pot without stopping to think if it should.