Mamula

On a picturesque holiday a group of old old and new friends take a trip to an off limit island and find something thought to be of only fantasy.

With a skimpy dressed cast in amongst the nice scenery and locations there's blood filled impalement, beheading, hacking, stabbings and a creepy Mermaid. Nymph is a strong horror entry especially during it's atmospheric night segments as men are enticed by the sounds of the mermaid. The interesting aged Montenegero locations add a different look and feel to the proceedings. At times reminiscent of Dagon, to director Milan Todorovic's credit it sets the scene with an early killing, then builds up to a claret finale while taking a leaf out of Jaws (1975) book by keeping the 'monster' unseen until the final act.

Played straight, the actress Zorana Kostic Obradovic and Mina Sablic's mermaid steal the show, second to Miodrag Krstovic, a Castro lookalike protagonist and of course there's Franco Nero in a fitting role as Niko- an old salty sea dog amongst the easy on the eye cast including the notable Natalie Burn, Sofija Rajovic and Kristina Klebe. Yes some cast members sometimes struggle with the English dialogue, accents and the editing and pacing at times is a little off but it adds to the quirky off beat charm that Nymph/Mamula/Killer Mermaid posses.

Overall, this Euro part horror mystery, part slasher flick and campfire tale does what it says on the fantasy horror tin. Entertaining.

To be perfectly honest, I had some fun with this.

Like others have said, if you don't expect much, you might find it enjoyable. And, it's not hard to keep the expectations realistic after director's debut, Zone of The dead. This film is a step up.

The locations are fantastic, paired with intriguing premise, what can go wrong? Well, let's see....

Acting is questionable, characters paper thin, story rushed and what we do learn about them doesn't keep us exactly rooting for this bunch. The film starts out in least promising way possible, cliché one liners, atrocious acting from most members of the cast (Kristina Klebe, Franco Nero and D. Micanovic excluded) and awful, cheap music to go along with holiday mood.

After initial half hour or so which does test one's patience, Mamula indeed gets off the ground, meaning we finally start getting a taste of some action, essential for projects like this. Thanks to ideal setting (island of Mamula on Adriatic sea; former military base) and some gory fx, the pain of enduring uninspired talk and "character development" is finally paying off. Some generic slasher kills, chasing through the maze of corridors...all's good, but, where's the Mermaid?!

Nymph is the strongest thing this film has going for it, location aside. And, indeed when she does finally appear I was ready to forget all the shortcomings. Could have watched her go all day long, nice make up/fx work there with pinch of bad CGI, but having relatively humble resources in mind, that is really not that big a deal. Although, I could have used a bit more daring approach, the Mermaid should have gotten more screen time doing her "thing", imo.

One of the surprises was Dragan Micanovic, in a role that's atypical for him, he handled the perky, jokey and lively Boban pretty well. Nero shows that he's still got it/with admirable screen presence against the pale bunch; and calm, assertive Klebe takes her role seriously. Overall, not the worst way to spend hour and a half, if nothing, to soak up the natural beauty of the setting with occasional horror action thrown into the mix.

Two young American women go on a Mediterranean vacation and uncover the watery lair of a killer mermaid hidden beneath an abandoned military fortress. What was once a carefree adventure becomes a deadly fight for survival.

So, the film has gone through a few title changes: from "Mimula" to "Killer Mermaid" to "Nymph". The first one is the most accurate, other than that no one knows what that is. The second sounds like a SyFy film. The third is sort of close. Really ,they ended up with a mermaid mixed with a siren. What would that be called?

There is some great use of color, although the camera has an odd tendency to "float" rather than focus on the subjects. There is also some awkward English, but given that this is in Serbia, that really should be expected.

Anyway, not terrible, but it does not even come close to the original mermaid horror film: "Night Tide".

For a movie called "Killer Mermaid" this has surprisingly very little mermaid action in it, it takes an hour before the promised killer mermaid action actually starts (unless you count the beginning teaser).

In the first 30 minutes or so it still kept my interest a bit, a lot having to do with the beautiful Serbia Monetenegro landscape that I haven't really seen in a movie before.

The characters also feels a little more three-dimensional than the usual 2d stereotypes that cheap creature features like this usually offers.

Not that any of the characters are all that interesting tho and once the action does start in the second half the clichés starts piling up.

The acting is okay although the accents get a little distracting from time to time and make the dialog sound unnatural for most of the cast.

It's not the worst movie I've seen or anything but it's not particularly good either, if you're looking for a mermaid horror movie I suggest SHE CREATURE (2001) instead.

I know what you're thinking. A movie about a killer mermaid, so it has to suck. That's the attitude I had when I sat down to watch this movie. However, it was very well done for what it was. They did a serious job on this film. The acting was pretty good, as was the story and the special effects. They spent about 30 mins of a 90 minute movie with character development, which is fine, because it made you at least get to know some of the characters. I'd recommend this movie, as long as you know it's not a blockbuster film. All I need is for a movie to be entertaining, and I thought that's what it was. I didn't look at my watch waiting for the movie to end. It was well done.

I gave this film a 5-star rating because I really enjoyed it, and it was sooooo much better than I thought it would be. I thought this was going to be some stupid movie like Piranha 3DD or Varsity Blood. However, as I said, it was done in a serious way, and the people in this could act.