The Siren (I) (2019) User Reviews

I'm also a girl

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 24 July 2020]

The plot is developed early. Nina (Margaret Ying Drake ) is drowned in Lake Argo in the very first scene and becomes a siren drowning folks who take a dip in the lake. Not sure why it happened. Tom (Evan Dumouchel ) rents a fisherman's cabin on the lake. He has a heavy Christian background. He is from North Carolina and a mute. His throat got crushed while he was swimming, sorry can't picture it. He doesn't like water. Al (MacLeod Andrews ) is a neighbor whose husband was killed by the siren. He wants revenge and debates between the mini-Trejo machete or Maxwell's silver hammer. Meanwhile, our unlikely couple becomes smitten with each other during the times she is not trying to drown him. Tom is a good listener.

The plot is given to us fast. The two male characters are developed. We know little of the fully clothed Nina, except she doesn't wear shoes. The film was too slow for me. You could fast forward to the last 10 minutes or so. Because once the plot is quickly developed, it stays in a rut.

Guide: No swearing sex, or nudity.

Umm...

[taedirish · 5/10 · 13 December 2020]

A mute man leaves his religious existence to go stay on a lake in a one room cabin. He quickly befriends his neighbor, a widowed hippy whose husband had drowned in the lake the previous year. The mute also meets a cute Asian girl who seemingly lives IN the lake. That's because WE know she's actually some kind of human/creature hybrid who hangs out in the lake and drowns people (including the guppy's husband). The mute and the monster start to fall for each other, while the hippy realizes she's the monster and he decides he wants revenge. Mute and monster have sex (while she keeps 1 foot in the water somehow), hippy jumps the mute, smashes the monster's head with a sledgehammer... Monster doesn't die, grabs hippy and drowns him in the lake, then vanishes. Mute spends the next few days looking for his prune-skinned lover but she's ghosted him. Finally, he gives up and turns to leave. As he walks out of frame, we see the girl pop up in the water to watch him leAve, cut to black... No explanation as to how she got to be what she is...was she always this thing? Was it a curse? Could it be broken? Instead, she just has a hookup with a mute and spends the rest of her time psycho stalker daydreaming about the two of them doing regular couples stuff. The ending was very unsatisfactory, and why TF is no one investigating all these drownings? There's a scene that suggests the monster may be able to control herself when she opts NOT to drown a little girl, but ultimately I guess she considered her thing with the mute as more of a hookup and not a long term relationship.

Slow and boring

[edjams · 4/10 · 7 May 2020]

Mute guy falls in love with women in water besides her eyes going black and her voices changing not much happens. Not scary not a good romance movie all around pointless waste of time.

Heartbreakingly beautiful

[Edeards · 24 August 2020]

If you're not into subtle slow burn movies, and you consider Marvel movies to be masterpieces this may not be for you.

It's slow, methodic, tortured and utterly heartbreaking... but a wonderful movie.

to the reviewer that felt the need to write a thesis on Siren and Mermaid lore, review the movie, we don't need a history lesson on mythology, geez.

Great Premise Bad Editing

[minimikejk · 2/10 · 12 July 2020]

I am not sure if the point of this movie was to be "artsy " but because of the poor editing it is really hard to track. It could have been a great story but I honestly couldn't tell what was supposed to be happening when and with whom. Time spliced editing is very tricky and if you don't do it right it can ruin your story.

I don't get it.

[mertgsb · 2/10 · 18 June 2020]

I can't believe anyone would give this movie more than a one or two. I truly thought there must be some mistakes with editing because it was so disjointed and confusing. I had to keep rewinding, thinking I missed something, but the movie just jumped around.

Disappointing

[JonnyDR75 · 2/10 · 17 May 2020]

I had high hopes for this, but it falls flat. I just couldn't get behind the murderous fish lady. I will say that it's effective in a sense that if the goal was to produce a textbook example of a tragedy, that was accomplished. You're definitely left with feelings of pity and fear.

A waste of my time (and maybe yours)

[littlesatanhooves · 1/10 · 18 September 2019]

This must have been what Dorothy, Sophia and Blanche felt like everytime Rose told them a long winded yarn about her hometown St Olaf during episodes of the much loved Golden Girls sitcom. The three women had two choices. They could either leave the room or be forced to stick around until the St Olaf tale was wrapped up, after which Dorothy would get up and sometimes smack Rose on the head with a book or newspaper. Well, The Siren is even more agonising to sit through, compared to Rose's tales of St. Olaf. The latter, despite being bizarre and surreal, sometimes had a twisted logic to them. No such luck with The Siren. The reason why I sat through The Siren was because it was only 80 minutes and even if I knew that nothing good was going to come out of it (after the movie reached it's halfway mark), I thought, what the heck, I might as well sit it out, since I had already come this far. Even before the credits finished rolling, I hit the delete button and sent the file to the trash can. And just as equally irritating as the movie is the silly pseudo Enya/Gaelic wailing, which pops up everytime the titular creature surfaces to wreak havoc.

A Laborious and Excruciatingly Slow Story

[dec201953 · 1/10 · 24 June 2020]

This movie was so slow in great part because the director expended an inordinate amount of time trying to create an aesthetically pleasing story. Unfortunately, investing So much time in creating a cinematically pleasing movie quashed the story which became an ordeal to watch. It's a story that fails miserably to develop the characters Of the three actors and in the end leaves you asking why you ever watched this movie. Disappointing.

Slow Burn Lore

[RachelMarieSmith · 10/10 · 2 May 2020]

Really enjoyed this. Slow burn horror. Little dialogue and it wasn't needed to understand the story, so well done. (Probably not for everyone.)

Pointless. Utterly pointless!

[becksc-06666 · 1/10 · 22 September 2019]

Even if this movie was condensed from 80 minutes to 20 minutes, it would still be just as excruciating to watch. The one thing that I kept asking myself was the rationale behind the plot and the characters, and the only word I kept seeing, as the minutes flew by, was 'pointless'. For example, one of the three characters is gay and apparently, a church going Christian. Why? His sexuality and religion hardly affected the plot. He might as well have been straight, or a woman, or a lesbian or an agnostic gender neutral. Heck he could've been a grey alien in disguise! And the mute character. Why mute? He might as well have been paralysed, or visually challenged. It wouldn't have made any difference at all. None of the character traits exhibited by the two main players had any real bearing to the story arc, or to character development. A complete waste.

maybe 2 stars at best and a waste of time...

[tomblack-610-770711 · 1/10 · 14 June 2020]

Maybe 2 stars at best and I agree a total waste ...

Disorganized, stupid, pointless

[kvhdn000 · 1/10 · 29 May 2020]

1. The siren is a young, smiling, friendly women who is always in the lake, except when she briefly goes on shore. 2. The male protagonist is mute due to a throat injury; I don't know what that has to do with anything. 3. Among other things, there are frequent jumps back and forth between shots that take place at unknown times and didn't convey anything to me. There are many shots of one of her feet dangling in the water; I don't know what that means. S_Soma (above) said it far more eloquently than I could. (I am not a former literature major or a lover of literature or folklore.) S said, "THE SIREN is a confused, cold mess that's sloppy and careless in everything it does including the choice of title" and "I call BS. This is crappy moviemaking at its most craptastic." Becksc-06666, edjams, and littlesatanhooves also expressed my opinions far better than I could.

Uh...

[suprchunk · 2/10 · 2 June 2020]

I'm not sure why the glowing reviews are written in the poorest English imaginable, but they are. That and references to the production staff like they are know by the reviewer. I get people having bias to someone in the "business" that they know, but it shouldn't cloud your objective opinion. And these reviews are obvious in their bias, and favoritism.

This movie is glacial in it's motions to get to anything of substance. The "siren" is always in the water. Always. Now if they had named it Rusalka, then some sense could have been made of this never leaving the water. Though the original variation of the "legend" was more genial and kind to man. They made a character mute, I guess to justify having such a bad actor in the role, or to save on typing up his dialogue. Shame, because the actor is not bad.

Lighting? Horrible. Chemistry is bad, props are bad, situations are very unbelievable. As is the ultimate compassion, suddenly portrayed.

If you are one to figure a movie out quickly, don't bother watching this feeble attempt at disguised foreshadowing. It's obvious.

The actress playing the Rusalka has the most high-pitched voice since the original Valley Girl, so subtly is not something this monster has going for her. Plus the part about always being in the water. Always. Not sure if I mentioned that already or not.

I had high hopes for this one, because I thought "They Look Like People" was a great movie, slow, but ultimately awesome. I guess you can't win them all.

Even worse than bad: deeply boring

[thisislaralewis · 2/10 · 7 June 2020]

The Siren had so much potential. If it was a first-time student film, I might give it a pass. The set-up of the two male leads provides a great opportunity to develop a nuanced, complicated relationship, which the film chooses to gloss over. Choosing to make one character openly gay and the other a strict Christian and having them form a friendship means something in the world we live in, but in the world of this film, it only serves as set dressing to give the illusion of well-roundedness. The same goes with the lead's muteness. I think casual representation is something we should all strive for in the stories we tell and consume, but if you're going to make something a central element of your narrative, why not explore it in a deeper, emotional and thematic way? Margaret Ying Drake delivers a competent performance, but the script, costuming, and effects give any reality she might breathe into Nina a lot to fight against. The use of music in the film is.... complicated. I see from some promotional material that it seems like at times this film has been marketed as The Rusalka, which honestly makes more sense from a mythological standpoint than a siren. The roots of Nina's character as a creature from Slavic mythology makes the use of music make more sense (mostly a capella vocals of folk songs). There was a moment when I recognized a song that was being used in the film, but once the excitement that I might be cultured of clever wore off, I realized that the meaning, the actual words, of the song, had nothing to do with its place in the film, and I realized that this honestly bold choice for a soundtrack was literally only there to create a spooky atmosphere by appealing to its "otherness" to an English-speaking audience. All in all, The Siren feels half-baked, and worse of all, just boring. If only it was even more poorly made it might've fallen into a so-bad-its-good territory, but, alas.

Boring movie from the Balkans, and with bad music

[smihaila · 1/10 · 3 July 2020]

Boring, and without a story well put together. Music is particularly bad - lame attempt at creating some atmosphere of mystery, but failing miserably at that.

One of the best little indies I've seen recently

[jgfxm · 10/10 · 10 May 2020]

I'm glad I found this unexpected gem. The texture and feel of the film is consistent and perfect. The acting is very good, with minimal dialogue. The fear is there and the scares are there, made all the more real by the gentleness and emotional weight. Especially startling is how the composition of filming, lighting and sound made the girl blend perfectly with the water she inhabited. There are some very chilling scenes, and this is a movie that will stay with me in a good way for a long time. The music is beautiful, too.

There are no horror stories in Hell or Slavic (slave?) world

[sipipocu · 1/10 · 19 May 2019]

For anyone knowing Slave/Slavic folklore, they may smile when reading about "Rusalka". Slavic humor is already grim, horror-like. Therefore, no room for horror stories or monsters. When you're the monster and invade others, everything else is fun. Henceforth, this movie will be perceived differently. Perhaps it should be Comedy/Horror.

Don't waste your time

[eventlaunch · 1/10 · 20 October 2020]

Unless you have a sexual mermaid fetishism boring slow burn with litrally nothing happening its about a siren who actually drowns and murders families who falls in love with a deaf mute while being hunted by a guy who's boyfriend she murdered unable to get revenge he dies in hands of siren and the mute finds out she's a killer, she ashamed leaves, he cries few days wishing he could be a siren and than leaves END Now imagine getting the movie in the prospective of a deaf mute who don't speak throughout the film. The Siren The good ratings obviously from production crew and execs

It is slow, but

[nhoelbl11 · 4/10 · 28 July 2020]

The actors in this movies are very easy to look at, seriously attractive people. This makes it easier to watch. Some of the other reviews covering the origins of sirens and resulki (sp) are actually more entertaining than the storyline was. My only take away from this movie wasn't fear, but sadness that humans are so fragile.

caught in a bad romance

[exlana · 5/10 · 23 December 2022]

The Siren has a 80 minutes film and it's excruciatingly slow. No 80 minutes film should be this slow. It's like after the premise is establish, the story is in freeze frame, until the ending. And even though is very well acted, especially for an indie film, i don't feel any chemistry between the leads and most of the times, the romance felt forced.

The camera work is somewhat 'bad', almost look...'amateur-ish', though, it doesn't bother me as much, . The editing is a bit confusing, it jumps in between scenes, i assume all these jumping scenes is the two leads fantasizing..?

I watched all Perry Blackshear's film, and i must say, this is his weakest film.. by far. I liked 'They Look Like People' a lot and genuinely enjoyed 'When I Consume You' despite its low rating, but The Siren seems very weak, and absurd, which is a huge disappointment.

5/10 I'll skip this one if i were you.

Meh

[faithpinkie · 2/10 · 29 April 2022]

Meh. At best. Where is the dialogue?

It just dragged on and was just meh. A collection of disjointed scenes. It did not feel at all that the director wanted to tell a story. It felt like the scenes did not make sense together and the music is really awful. What a terrible soundtrack.

Skip it.

Whoever Funded this "Film" Should Demand Their Money Back!

[Ecupirate4ever · 1/10 · 15 April 2022]

Thank God I check the user reviews before devoting any real time to a film. I took the advice of the reviewer who suggested watching the first 10 mins & then fast forwarding to the last few minutes. Unfortunately, I can think of a million better uses of those 14 minutes of my life.

This will stay with you!

[parry_na · 8/10 · 7 November 2020]

What a uniquely strange and haunting film this is. Billed as a horror, which it unquestionably is, it is also a truly heart-wrenching tale of longing and impossible love.

Nina, the titular siren (Margaret Ying Drake), mute outsider Tom (Evan Dumouchel) and lonely Al (MacLeod Andrews) are the three main characters, and with them we spend the 80 minutes of this story's running time. Inspired by the legend of The Rusalka, director and co-writer Perry Blackshear has these three guide us through a myriad of emotions - loss, friendship, distrust, suspicion and love. Interesting that Tom is a man of deep faith, and it such a refreshing change that faith isn't used as any kind of catalyst for anything else - it is simply part of his character and it gladdens us that he isn't totally alone, even after all that transpires.

Al is bereft after his husband - seen only briefly in flashback - is taken from him. When Nina appears, things change slowly. In fact, most things happen slowly, which will ensure this film isn't for everyone - but I found myself genuinely moved by it.

Terrific, intense performances all around - Ying Drake especially is creepy, sorrowful, alluring and endearing, sometimes all in one scene - allow 'The Siren' to stay in your mind long after the credits, and the haunting music, have finished rolling. My score is 8 out of 10.

Hauntingly beautiful love story.

[jchuck44 · 9/10 · 8 May 2020]

I really liked this movie. It was slower moving but it had to be. It built a relationship between the siren and the man. No other way could it have been done. For those who didn't like it don't appreciate this kind of film. That's ok. You though, have to watch it for yourself.