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“ | Dude, I am the Harry Houdini of getting away with it. I know how tonight plays out, and we get out clean. You just gotta do what I say. Okay? | „ |
~ Luke to Garrett. |
Lucas "Luke" Lerner is the main antagonist of the 2017 Christmas horror-comedy film Better Watch Out.
He is a young 12 year old boy, who later turns out to be a psychopathic narcissist, who is obsessed with his babysitter Ashley and tries to get her to love him, as she is moving away. He also brings along his best friend Garrett, who is also his accomplice.
He was portrayed by Levi Miller in his first villainous role.
Personality[]
Luke comes off as sweet and precocious to his parents and babysitter, and mischievous goofball with his best friend Garrett. However, these traits are all ruses to hide his more sinister, sadistic, manipulative, abusive, and psychopathic tendencies. He is shown to be entitled, uncaring, remorseless and downright cruel, premeditating murders without a care in the world and revelling in the power high succeeding it gives him. Worse, he is obsessed by his creepy, precocious lust for Ashley, wanting nothing more than having sex with her, molesting her without a care for her blatant discomfort and resolving to kill her without batting an eyelid when it becomes clear he will not get her.
Despite this, he is still a child at heart, finding great amusement in games like Truth or Dare or being fascinated by pot smoke appearing out of a stab wound that he caused. He showed a minute bit of remorse after killing his best friend, just for going against him, but coldly brushes him off as annoying right after.
Luke seems to be a pathological liar, albeit a very convincing one who takes great care in always keeping all details of his charades, because he fakes sleep-walking to sneak out of his house at night and told teachers Garrett was stopping vandals in the locker bathrooms, while Garrett skipped fourth period.
Luke is a very intelligent expert at crafts, as he set a carefully planned network of complex traps in chronological order to simulate a flawless, authentic home invasion while not being remotely close, to them and would've been successful if Garrett didn't shown remorse. Still, he is far too pretentious, overconfident, and way over his head. Indeed, he is unable to process that his plans could go wrong and boasting that he always gets away. This despite the fact that he overlooked many details that could give him away or would not fool forensic experts, and failed to realize that his plan was doomed right from the start.
Biography[]
Luke's parents are leaving the house to attend a Christmas party and is watched over by his longtime babysitter Ashley, whom he has a huge crush on. He is dismayed that she is moving to Pittsburgh in a couple of days and tries to hit on her that night, cuddling up to her while watching a movie and drinking champagne with her. Soon, people begin to terrorize them, calling them on the house phones and throwing a brick through a window. After the assailant breaks in, Luke retrieves his father's handgun and goes to confront the intruder, leading to him and Ashley hiding in his bedroom closet. However, she recognizes the mask the intruder wears as one that he owns, and she quickly realizes that the intruder was Luke's friend Garrett pranking her to get her to have stronger feelings for Luke. After Ashley calls him out for being a "selfish brat" and threatens to call his parents, he slaps her, causing her to fall down the stairs and gets knocked unconscious.
Ashley wakes up bound to a chair and gagged, getting molested by Luke in a game of Truth or Dare by him and Garrett. Her boyfriend, Ricky, whom she had an argument with and texted earlier, arrives to make amends to her, but he gets himself kidnapped as well. Luke then kills him with a paint can à la Home Alone to prove a point made about the fatality of being hit with a paint can to Garrett. Ashley manages to free herself and take Luke's father's pistol but runs away after she realizes Luke hid the ammo. After a struggle with a still complicit Garrett, she is knocked unconscious by the brick used to break the window.
Waking up, she finds her entire body wrapped up in duct tape and Christmas lights, rendering another chance of escape impossible. Garrett, traumatized from the experience, tries one more time to convince Luke not to kill Jeremy. As Luke lures and murders Ashley's ex-boyfriend Jeremy, Ashley convinces Garrett that Luke is a monster and gets him to free her. After getting her left arm and halfway up her body, Garrett is shot and killed by Luke's father's hunting shotgun. After spending another moment with Ashley, he says his mom stopped loving him for some reason, Ashley responds with "I think I know why" and she goes to sleep, Luke tries to wake her up, saying to admit he's messed up in the head. He gives up and goes behind her and stabs her in the neck and leaves her for dead before rigging the entire crime scene to imply that Jeremy was the killer.
His parents arrive home and discover the gruesome scene. His mother screams and comes up stairs to his room to see if he was unharmed. His mother hugs him tightly as he smiles, confident that he will get away with it, only to overhear paramedics wheel out a still alive Ashley, who used a piece of duct tape to seal her wound before she bled out, and gives him the finger as she is placed in the ambulance, showing him that he is done for. He then asks his mom to visit Ashley at the hospital, feigning a concern for her well-being. It is left unknown whether he is able to finish her off or not, leaving a sequel hook, but the most likely outcome is that Ashley is able to tell everything to the police. That and forensics would easily tell his fabricated story apart.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- His character was changed because executive producer feared that it was too complex for Levi Miller to play the personalities of Luke ranging from charming to innocent to a sadistic 12 year old.
- In a behind the scenes video on the DVD set, director Chris Peckover says Luke is like Kevin McCallister from Home Alone but is a more murderous and sadistic version of him.
- Two years prior, he killed Garrett's hamster and was believed to be an accident but Luke reveals it wasn't, showing that he likes killing/torturing animals.
- The original ending was apparently “far more nihilistic”, implying Luke got away with it however, the executive producer changed it due to feeling it was too bleak, with the film ending with the implication that Luke will be caught.
- Due to the fact that he killed Garrett's hamster in the past likely out of nothing but pure sadism, it is possible that Luke may have committed even more crimes in the past and may have killed even more people.
- Some believe that Luke's remorse for killing Garrett could have been real and he was just attempting to rationalize the situation to try and cope with his grief. However, the film never confirms if Luke's remorse was still within him or if he really had gotten over Garrett's death.
External Links[]
- Luke Lerner on the Pure Evil Wiki