Siren

I've always found actress Teresa Srbova extremely attractive, so when I found this flick playing on satellite one evening, and saw her in the cast, I had to watch it.

I thought the cinematography was great, but the story was non existent. I was disappointed and gave it a low rating here. Then years later, I found the DVD at a swap meet for $1.00 and thought it would be fun to watch it again.

After the movie was completed, I felt the same way I did the first time until I played the deleted scenes. There is a long deleted scene in special features where Silka (Srbova) is explaining the entire reason for everything happening on the island to the other female lead. I was dumbfounded why that scene was taken out of the flick, because it actually would have saved the movie.

Then interesting enough, I decided to try and reach Andrew Hull (director) to ask him why he removed the most important scene in the movie. It turns out that Andrew Hull was killed in May 2010 in a bicycle accident, and the movie was picked up later by Lionsgate in October 2010. It was messed with, released in March, 2011, and the final edit is nothing like Andrew Hull probably would have finished it.

Who the heck knows who did the final cut of this film. All I can tell you is : if this key scene wasn't removed from this movie by whomever, this film would be sitting here with a much higher rating than it is. Editing tells the story of a film. Too bad for Andrew Hull, that he died before he had the chance to piece his movie together for a final edit that might have told the story he originally had in mind.

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.

Do not get suckered in by the alluring movie cover, because it is really nothing that you see in the movie at all. And worst of all, that movie cover does send a wrong signal about what you will see in the movie.

The movie "Siren" is a story about 3 people getting stranded on a small island when their boat breaks down and runs ashore. Here they encounter the sensual and mysterious Silka. But something is not entirely right on the island...

"Siren" does have an interesting take on the whole siren mythology and it is interesting enough, just a shame that the rest of the movie was so bad. The story trots forward in a slow, dull pace with nothing much happening. And at times it is great, because you want to know what will happen next, but at other times it is frustrating, because you feel you are getting nowhere in way too long a time.

Having a small cast was working well for the movie though, because you get more involved with each character, but sadly there were very little character evolving throughout the movie. You never really fully did get into whom they were and why they acted the way they did.

One thing that did work for the movie, was the singing. When Silka was singing it did sound really interesting and chilling in a way. It sort of made you tinkle and the song went to your soul (if one does believe that we have souls). So thumbs up for the impressive sound here.

One thing that really ticked me off was the excessive display of semi-erotic scenes. Why did we see almost everyone making out with almost everyone? And why were there so many girl on girl scenes? It totally brought the movie down to a low-grade, low-ranked sleazy level. And this was what killed off the movie for me, the final death throe.

The genre is labeled as horror, but I wouldn't hardly call "Siren" a horror movie. It is more of a suspense movie, because nothing scary is happening throughout the entire movie.

I was disappointed with the overall movie experience, as I had expected at least something more than what it turned out to be; a sad excuse to show women kissing each other!

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.

Samuel L. Jackson once said in the film Changing Lanes to Ben Affleck...."I Want My Time Back!!" That's how I feel after watching this mess of a horrid film.

Siren is a "horror" film in which three friends take a boat trip to get away from the city. They spot a man on an island and rescue him, he soon dies on their boat. The motor on their boat has been fried and they decide to stay on the island over night. While on the island they run into a woman, who seems frightened, disoriented and can't seemed to remember things. She is beautiful and her beauty grabs the attention of the three characters, even the female. She turns out to be a siren, of Greek mythology. A beautiful woman who would lure men to the island through song. Death was brought upon them.

Argh, this film has an interesting cover design. A woman holding a knife in a bikini. There were two other women on each side of her, also in bikinis. The back cover of the DVD has yet another woman in a bikini. The tagline read an exotic tale of lust and revenge. Sex and horror, two great elements that go together. With a little bit a Greek mythology sprinkled in, I expected this film to be at the very least tolerable. Boy, was I ever wrong.

First, if the poster excites you, don't. This is a classic case of never judge a book by it's cover. Siren will try to lure you in with the promise of sex, blood and horror. The film never has a moment of these things. The film starts off with two characters pretending to be strangers, to spice up their relationship apparently. It fails because the woman has visions of some blonde person, whom we later find out to be the siren. They have sex, successfully on the boat, never exciting during the scene though. The siren has many scenes where she kisses the woman, I have no idea why. Maybe it was a cheap attempt at luring in young boys?

The back of the cover on the DVD is also wrong with the description of the film. It says they spot a seductive sultry woman on an island, this is incorrect. They spot some bearded man ramblings on in gibberish. It isn't till they bury him on the island do they see the woman, whom is neither seductive or sultry. We are treated to a bunch of scenes where the characters see things that aren't really there. The question of what is real and what isn't is raised, but you'll never be interested enough to care.

I'm expected to believe that the one character was in love with the other, except that he's upset about a 'hot friend' not making the trip. He also tries to have a three way with this new woman, just more fuel to the aggravating fire. Please, even a fifth grader can come up with better characterization than that. The third character, Marco, was pointless. Just another person to fill up the 80 minutes running time. He likes the woman that is dating the guy, but it never leads anywhere.

How do people die? The siren sings and they bleed from their ears. That is it. Excitement level is at an all time low here. Don't even get me started on the obvious and completely inane ending. This is not a horror film, I would call it suspense if anything...it even fails at that though.