Siren

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.

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.

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!

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.

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...