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My horror movie howler sense is going off like crazy as I start to play this movie. It's probably going to be a stinker I reckon, all the actors have Eastern European names, so no stars I've heard of and one of the main sponsors/backers (I don't know what they are you know them company names that come up before the movie starts), is Jerry's Catering! They must have pumped some money in as their logo is on a speedboat they use and is focused on as the boat pulls out. Product placement? Kind-of!
Doing a bit of research this 2014 movie seems to be sometimes known as Killer Mermaid singular and sometimes plural and it also seems to be known as Mamula and also Nymph.
It actually starts off reasonably OK, like every horror should with a double death. A guy leaps into the sea seemingly enticed by what I assume is a mermaid's siren call and goes under the waves, his panicked girlfriend beseeches what looks like a fisherman for help and he kills her with an anchor through the neck, so it's not just the mermaid who is killer in this movie.
We're then introduced to 2 women Kelly & Lucy who are meeting with their old school friend Alex and his fiancé Yasmin and we have to put up with some boring catching up, getting to know you sequences. We see Kelly & Alex re-ignite a past spark behind Yasmin's back, they also spot a creepy fisherman, (who may be the killer), and make a good joke/horror reference to the "I know What You Did Last Summer" franchise. We've not seen any mermaids yet but we do see another murder, a drunk guy get's anchor hooked in mid-piss, poor fella. They meet up with Boban and they make plans to go visit an old military fortress on an island called Mamula, an old man Niko overhears their plans and warns them against going, telling of the fortress's past as a Nazi concentration camp and also speaks of the Scylla who he claims once took and ate six of his crew, although it sounds like he is quoting a poem when he says this. Is Niko the fisherman we've seen killing 2 people now?
Needless to say in traditional horror movie fashion they ignore his warning and go to the island where they find out that the fisherman is already at the island and now they've arrived he won't let them leave, alive! He bursts their dinghy stranding them and proceeds to hunt them down. Is he the only danger on the island though or does something else lurk there?? (It's not much of a spoiler really, after all look at the title of the movie!)
Despite my initial thoughts it's not a bad movie, there is a bit of good gore, some reasonable CGI, creature make-up and the acting is not too bad but it's far from memorable, it won't make anybody's all time favourite list at all. I suppose it's a unique enough idea for a film with the cast running from a mad man with an anchor whilst also trying to resist the siren call of the flesh eating Scylla.
In Greek mythology Scylla is one of two monsters that live either side of a narrow strait, the other being Charybdis, they lived just an arrows range from each other. There is an idiom about being between Scylla & Charybdis meaning to escape or steer clear of one peril you may venture too close to the other. I kept wondering if they'd run into Charybdis in their flight from Scylla, you'll have to watch the film yourself to find out what happens.
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