VOD Review: The Lure (2017)

"It ain't easy being a teenage mermaid."

Mermaids have long been a terrifying concept. Beautiful half-fish/half-woman creatures who sing their gorgeous songs to lonely sailors in an effort to see their ships crash into rocks, or eat them. Presumably both. That is the stuff of dark legend.

A movie like The Lure mixing that already terrifying legend with the equally terrifying legend of the whims of the teenage girl sounds like double the carnage to us. Add in some poppy, Polish new wave music, and you have a movie that is every bit as captivating as the most lyrical siren song.

But damn is it weird.

A band called the Figs n' Dates is relaxing on a beach, playing some music and just enjoying whatever the hell there is to enjoy in 1980's Poland, when two mermaids pop out of the water and captivate their hearts and minds. The mermaid sisters, Silver and Golden, decide to join the band instead of eating them, which given the music, is kind of a bummer. So they all head to a gaudy strip club in Warsaw to make music together, and get naked.

APPARENTLY, THE AGE OF CONSENT FOR MERMAIDS IN POLAND IS 12.

Silver is the sweet mermaid sister. She longs to live a more human life filled with sex, cigarettes, and love. Golden is the bad girl, who just wants to rip people's throats out, devour them, and return to the sea. She also likes sex and cigarettes too, but it's 1980's Warsaw, so that's to be expected.

AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A WARSAW PARTY.

The sisters become so popular that they start their own band called The Lure, and even though they're loved by their fans, the whole eating people vs. finding love thing causes a rift between them. Needless to say that people get eaten, tails get fingered, and we're pretty sure that the filmmakers slipped us acid right before we watched this one.

Musical numbers, nudity, and mermaid violence ensues.

THE FINAL BOW.

Every so often, a movie comes along that just confounds the ever loving shit out of us, and The Lure is exactly that kind of movie.

It's a Horror movie, about a pair of mermaid sisters who decide to come ashore to feed on human flesh. It's also a musical that offers some surreal and weird numbers that are oddly hypnotic. It's also a coming-of-age film that showcases both the delicate nature and voracious cruelty that is the teenage girl.

It's bold and it's very out there with its visuals, storytelling, and the way that its musical numbers play out, but at the same time it's a bit of a tonal mess. And it's frustrating to watch at times, like a train that stops and starts over and over again, blaring loud, cheesy music and dropping balloons and confetti on its passengers each time it stops.

The mermaids also look cool and realistic, and the actresses playing them get the whole angsty/emotionally vulnerable thing right on.

SHE ABOUT TO GET EATEN.

The mermaids feed, and humans bleed.

AND SHE'S THE SWEET ONE...

Lots of nudity in this one, including naked teenage mermaids, mermaid vaginas, an inter-species lesbian scene, and a WTF-like breastfeeding scene.

It's... different.

LOOK, BUT DO NOT TOUCH!

I have to admit that as odd as it was to watch this Horror Musical at times, that some of the music was pretty damned good. Don't ask me to tell you what the songs were, because they're in Polish, but the heavy metal number along with the one where the girls are dressed up like Diane Lane in The Fabulous Stains were the standouts.

THAT RETRO, NEW WAVE LOOK THO...

Is The Lure a good movie, or is it a tedious exercise in oddity and shock? Well, that depends on how much you appreciate truly bizarre movies with an exploitational bent. Good or not, I have to say that it's a mesmerizing movie, and one that hits the right notes more often than not, even if we have no clue what in the hell the overall song is supposed to be about.

It's worth watching, if you like the weird turned up to 11.

B+

The Lure is available now on VOD, and it hits Blu-ray & DVD on October 10th.

We've fallen under the spell of Michalina Olszanska's siren song. Mermaid song. Whatever.

VOD Review: The Girl With All the Gifts (2017)

"A nice departure from the infected norm."

Based on the novel by Mike Carey (which was a pretty good read, by the way), The Girl With All the Gifts is an adaptation that ends up being better than most. That probably has to do with the fact that the screenplay was written by the book's author, which allowed for a certain level of care in the translation.

For those who have read the book, there are changes from book to screen, as there usually are, most notably certain deaths, and the omission of the "junkers" from the story. The ending "holy shit" ending stays faithful though.

Overall, fans of the book should be pleased with this adaptation.

The world has fallen victim to a nasty fungal virus that has left most of its population a mass of rabid zombies, affectionately called "Hungries." In a remote outpost populated by soldiers and scientists, humanity's only hope may lie in the hands of a teacher, Ms. Justineau, who is tasked with teaching a group of second generation "hungry" children who still retain much of their humanity despite their hunger for flesh. But teaching them what, that's the question.

MATH, MAYBE?

These children are treated as prisoners, bound to their chairs and escorted to and from their cells by gunpoint. They even feed the poor kids meal worms, like they're savages! One of the children, Melanie, has struck a chord with Ms. Justineau. Melanie seems human enough, but Ms. Justineau can't be sure if her sweet and lovable act is genuine, or just a tricky ruse to get her to let her guard down, so that she can eat her face off.

HE'S NOT BUYING THE NICE ACT, THOUGH. NOT FOR A MINUTE.

When the outpost is overrun with Hungries, Ms. Justineau, Melanie, Dr. Caldwell (who wants to vivisect Melanie), and a group of soldiers are forced to flee into the wilds, hoping to survive long enough to find a place to synthesize a cure to the plague. Somewhere along the way, they all might just learn to love again, too.

OR MAYBE THEY'LL JUST DIE.

The Girl With All the Gifts is a movie that took a more-than-tired sub-genre, and put a fresh spin on it, the results of which is a well-crafted story that was spun with plenty of care. Sure we've seen this story a hundred times before, but here, that story is smart, and it never reverts to the dreaded info dump or to too many overused tropes to get its point across.

The movie may be about a group of characters trying to survive a plague that turns people into infected "Hungries" that want to eat their face off, and of their mission to find a cure to the madness so that they can go on living, but that's about all that's familiar in this one. The place where the story ends up is pretty bold, and refreshing in a way.

The ending was bold a shocking, to say the least.

We also loved the way that the Hungries would stand around like they'd been paused, until they heard or smelled something edible come close. That made for a few intense scenes that mad us hold our breath.

Newcomer Sennia Nanua is the star of the show here, and she carries the movie admirably on her young shoulders. Considering that she's sharing the screen with top-notch actors like Glenn Close and Paddy Considine, that's saying something. She's all kinds of lovable as Melanie, to the point where you just want to reach through the screen and hug her, but at the same time she gave off a creepy aura of someone who could snap and rip a throat out at any minute. Nice job, kid.

And of course how can we not mention the beautiful Gemma Arterton, who is always a welcomed sight on screen.

CREEPY AS SHIT.

We actually get an R-rated level of bloodshed in this one.

SHE'S A MESSY EATER.

Not that kind of flick at all.

SHE SHOULD REALLY LOSE THAT SWEATER. IT'S WAY TOO CUMBERSOME.

Infected children are our future. Teach them well, and let them lead the way.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW, NANA!

The Girl With All the Gifts is a well-made spin on the infected zombie sub-genre, although I have to admit that for me, it left me wanting. I'm not sure what it left me wanting, more, I suppose, but that could just be me being picky. Maybe the ending threw me a bit. I don't know.

Overall though, this is a very solid flick that you'd do well to check out.

B

The Girl With All the Gifts is available now on VOD, with a Blu-ray/DVD release to follow on April 25th.

Gemma Arterton has some gifts of her own. Oh yes, she's got some gifts.

Theatrical Review: Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

"This is how you make a theatrical Horror movie in 2016."

Back in 2014, Blumhouse Productions gave us Ouija (review HERE); a decent supernatural yarn that most people shit on, but that we didn't hate. As bland and formulaic as it was, it got enough things right to keep us entertained.

Two years later, they've given us Ouija: Origin of Evil; a sequel that no one in their right mind wanted. Given the fact that the first movie wasn't stellar, and that the trailer for this prequel made us cringe a little bit, we figured that this new Ouija movie was destined to make our Worst of 2016 list...

But holy shit, it was actually a pretty damned good movie.

Alice Zander is a widowed mother trying to support her two young daughters in 1967, and she does so as a medium who contacts the spirits of the dead to bring their loved ones a sense of closure. Of course it's all a scam (because it ALWAYS is), but it's not like Alice is doing it to bilk people out of money. No, she actually likes giving people the closure they need. So, she's shady, but for a really good reason.

OH, PEOPLE, WHEN WILL YOU EVER LEARN...

Grieving the loss of their father, daughters Lina and Doris help their mom with her business, but wish there was a way to contact his spirit, because they need closure too. When Lina comes across a Ouija board at a party, she convinces mom to start using one in her readings, which she does, but while testing it out, she contacts some creepy spirit that latches onto youngest daughter Doris.

REMEMBER THE RULES FROM THE FIRST MOVIE? WELL, MOM BREAKS #3.

As Alice and Lina begin to realize that Doris is getting creepier and creepier because she's possessed by an evil spirit, they turn to a priest at the girls' school. What he's supposed to do, I don't know, but I can tell you that they all end up in the basement where terrible secrets are uncovered, and where they'll most likely meet their maker.

It's a prequel, you know it doesn't end well.

NOPE, NOT WELL AT ALL.

I personally like the first Ouija movie for what it was, but if I'm being honest, it was a generic flick that wasn't all that great.

Somehow though, the guy who gave us two other movies we really liked -Oculus (review HERE), and Hush (review HERE)- has managed to make craft a solid sequel (prequel, really) to a movie that should have never been given a sequel to begin with. His name is Mike Flanagan, and let me tell you that as much as we've dug his work up until this point, the fact that he could turn a disposable series like Ouija around like this and make it respectable makes us believe that he's the real deal.

The story here is compelling; it's got some genuine emotional beats; its characters are likable and relatable; its scary in the right ways; and even though it falls back on a few typical gags (like that damn stretching mouth thing that has been in 496 Horror movies since 2010), it felt fresh and original. Or at the very least, i wasn't business as usual for a PG-13 Horror flick of this type.

The cast was solid as hell here too. Elizabeth Reaser was great as the mom not only trying to raise her kids all by her lonesome in 1967, but to save them from evil spirits to boot. Annalise Basso (who also starred in Flanagan's Oculus) is a name to watch too, as she played the typical "teen daughter" role in a completely un-annoying way, which is saying something. The real standout here though was young Lulu Wilson, who played the role of the possessed Doris with skill well beyond her years. Honestly, the kid was so good and creepy in this one that we actually want to see Annabelle 2 now, just because she's going to be in it.

YEAH, HOW MANY TIMES DO MOVIES REALLY NEED TO USE THIS SAME GAG?

Why would you ever give a kid a Ouija board?

NOPE. NOT HAPPENING.

Sure. Let's go in the basement of the creepy house to find your missing daughter who is possessed by the ghost of some evil, murderous bastard. That'll end well.

OH, THERE SHE IS.

It's PG-13, so there's barely any blood or gore, but there are some pretty creepy visuals to be had throughout.

THAT LOOKS PAINFUL.

Nope. Not that kind of flick.

MOM WAS A QT THOUGH.

We really liked the opening scene, which established the characters really well, but then there was that scene with the shadow man...

DUDE, SHE'S JUST A KID!

Ouija: Origin of Evil surprised the hell out of us by being a smart, well-made, and actually scary movie. It's better than the first movie, and if they can keep on making them like this, we'd be happy to see this series become a franchise.

This is theatrical, PG-13 Horror done right.

B+

Ouija: Origin of Evil is in theaters now.

I'm pretty sure that none of these ladies will ever use a Ouija board again. Can't blame 'em.