Siren

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.

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 easy pulling of a psychological terror movie. Probably even more difficult on a low budget. And Siren seems to be done on a bare-bones budget. There are a total or 6 actors or so in the entire movie and only a few locations. That said I'm glad it was filmed on location on an island and not in a studio.

The story involves a couple in lust, Ken and Rachel who take a trip on a boat around the Greek islands. For some reason, Rachel's ex comes along for the trip. As they get close to an island they encounter a skinny man bleeding out of his ears and who ends up dying shortly after that. They bury him on the island and run into a strange woman who doesn't speak much.

That's when the psychoterror begins as all the tourists start seeing and hearing things, although none of it is particularly scary or threatening. At first what keeps the movie going is the sexual tension between the attractive ladies Rachel and the woman. Once that fades away, the movie quickly goes downhill as the psychoterror ramps up and becomes more dull and pointless. Countless times we have one character wondering off into the woods and everyone else screaming his/her name over and over.

The title gives away what this movie is about and yet they try to present that as a surprise, it obviously isn't. They should have given this movie a different title. Also important is a little background mythology and explanation the strange woman gives- which ends up in the deleted scenes! There is a final twists in the movie which was very good and made things interesting.

Despite the low budget, this movie looks very good, the ladies are hot, but the story is too minimal. Even though Siren is fairly short it feels long because nothing serious goes on. A well made movie that is seriously hampered by a weak script and lack of ideas.

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...

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.