Siren

the only thing, that is really horrifying is the dialogs. people constantly shouting their names, nonstop looking for each other. nothing happens in this movie but the waste of time. after 20 minutes, you think: »please, get killed. now! o my gosh, it's another 60 minutes left.«

if someone is interested in mythology, i recommend homers odyssee as a book. this movie isn't even a modern interpretation of it. everything is superficial. no connection but the idea of people who got influenced by the singing of sirens. in the myth it's not only one siren and they sing to get seamen to shipwreck. here, the reason is different. in fact, the movie combines the myth of sirens with the myth of circe. that's, why the siren's name is silka, 'cause it sounds like, without meaning it. in the odyssee these are completely different stories. this is just senseless eclecticism. poorly made.

It's not often you get a modern horror film with its origins in Greek myth, but SIREN is such a movie. Sadly, it wastes the potential of that premise with a storyline that turns out to stick to its low budget origins in a film that features plenty of tease and very little in the way of action or incident.

I don't mind mood pieces that focus on brooding atmosphere but there's none of that either. Where SIREN does succeed is in creating a sufficiently exotic locale for the action - this British movie was shot in Tunisia and it looks great. The twentysomething cast don't have much opportunity to shine given the vagueness of their characters, and when the supernatural aspects of the storyline finally show up they're dealt with in the most ordinary way imaginable.

Where I do have to praise the film is in the performance of lead actress Anna Skellern. She starts off being treated in purely physical terms as a Kelly Brook-style voluptuous figure, but by the end she's shown previously unimagined depths of fragility and determination. Skellern is very good, the single stand out in what is a generally lacklustre movie.

It's hard to believe that any film can get so much so wrong all at once.

Siren has no major stars in it and is a self-confessed horror film. Therefore, the best the film-makers were probably hoping for was that it attained a cult following on DVD. I doubt it will.

For a start the cover is misleading. It shows three bikini-clad women's bodies on the front. There are only two women in the whole movie (and only one ever wears a bikini slightly near the end of the film). Secondly, the tagline describes the film as 'The best supernatural thriller since Dead Calm.' First of all Dead Calm was released over twenty years ago and it wasn't supernatural. The only similarity is that both films have boats in them.

Then we have the film itself: three of the most unlikeable people in the world take a boat trip and end up getting stuck on an island with - you guessed it - a siren. Despite not heeding the obligatory warning from the clichéd old geezer at the boating station about sailing too close to the rock and getting caught by supernatural beings, they do it anyway. Do we care? Probably not by now as we're so sick of watching these people.

Anyone hoping for vague titillation will be disappointed. You see two women naked from the back and they kiss a couple of times. No nudity. Not even lots of bikini-clad women.

The horror. There isn't much. There's hardly any in the film at all. When it tries to be scary about three quarters of the way through, it just feels confusing.

It's one plus point - it was short. However, the 1 hr 16 minutes felt a lot longer than it actually way! Just don't bother with this one.

An excellent setup, nice idea but completely wasted in bad acting, bad directing and scripting.

You know, if you are going to make a sexy horror movie you have to go all the way. I mean, why selling sex with the cover, why select the players so obviously by their looks, if you are not going to show a thing.

On the other hand maybe you could have pull it off as a more serious horror movie with better actors. But not showing the sex scenes between the characters, specially the lesbian scene, is not having any sense of business at all.

In the end, be clear of what kind of movie you want to make and try to make the better movie you can of the genre...

Such a waste...

Siren had the potential to be a great film. Unfortunately due to poor scripting and what seems like a very rushed denouement, the film never really lives up to it's potentially very interesting premise.

The director certainly shows some flair for gorgeous scenics and there is definitely an ambiance of sexy creepiness but all of this amounts to very little.

Even the expected exploitative aspects of this film seem somewhat tame in terms of what they could've been.

A really interesting first half amounts to a barely sustainable 76 odd minute somewhat interesting erotic horror film, but nothing you should go out of your way to make a point of seeing.