Synopsis
Opting to sleep in the allegedly-haunted guest house while spending a weekend in the Hamptons with friends, Ruth, a lonely young woman in her mid-twenties who's had too much to drink, strikes up a conversation that leads to a sexual encounter with Michael, a burlap-draped ghost that casually appears before her. Through this inter-paranormal relation, Ruth contracts an STD with alarming effects.
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Cast
- Joe SwanbergDean
- Lindsay BurdgeRuth
- Peter VackMichael
- Chase WilliamsonRyan
- Keith PoulsonKeith
- Jennifer KimClaudette
- Andrew RyderAndrew
- William NadylamSal Gricky
- Betsey BrownMaybe Susan
Recommendations
- 83
The Playlist
The trick the director pulls off is that “Lace Crater” weaves a comedic touch throughout the film, keeps the audience compellingly off balance when it pitches toward horror, and puts together a picture that slyly has much more going on beneath its laid back surface. - 70
Los Angeles Times
Lace Crater is a thoroughly modern ghost story that creeps into camp, testing the audience as it wavers between terrifying and deadpan funny. - 60
Village Voice
Slight though it may be, Lace Crater's mix of Andrew Bujalski–style naturalism and Roman Polanski–style body horror is at least off-kilter enough to keep one absorbed throughout. - 58
IndieWire
It’s a story that has its share of unnerving sequences, but like its pivotal character, it feels stuck between two worlds. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
What at first looks like a mumblecore comedy with a supernatural twist turns into something darker, and many viewers will not feel like going along for the detour into psychological horror. - 50
Variety
First-time director Harrison Atkins never quite finds his own distinct voice. He dabbles in horror and deadpan comedy, experiments in discordant jags on the soundtrack, and suggests a more fluid boundary between the living and the dead, but the film remains stubbornly hazy and obscure in its intentions. - 50
The New York Times
Ms. Burdge — all quicksilver emotion and exposed nerve endings — is an endlessly watchable focal point. Her character’s vulnerability, uncertainty and growing self-acceptance lend the movie a necessary gravity.
