THE LURE Is a Retro Euro-Pop Flick that Flounders - Sundance Review
In The Lure, set in 1980s Poland, a trio of musicians happens upon a pair of sister mermaids named Gold and Silver who, after seducing them with song, are taken to the sleazy nightclub where the band works with the idea that the two mermaids will sing backup and strip. Not joking. Mermaid strippers.
Needless to say (or not?) the mermaids are an instant success, and everyone falls under the spell of the two mer-sisters. During a series of catchy songs and dance numbers that'll have you singing along despite not knowing a word of Polish, the handsome young bassist becomes romantically involved with Silver, the more demure of the two. Gold, however, is less enamored by life on land and finds it increasingly difficult to contain her taste for blood.
But things begin to quickly fall apart and get exponentially more bizarre as Gold and Silver express different desires. Silver wants the anatomy of a human so her boyfriend—to put it bluntly—won't be turned off by doing it with half a fish. Gold wants to rip out people's hearts and eat them, which is no less strange, but a slightly more conventional horror trope.
All in all, this film doesn't overcome its rank subplots with random characters coming out of nowhere with confusing frequency. There's a frantic rush at the end to wrap up all the loose ends that have accumulated over the course of the film. And frankly, fish don't really turn me on as much as I think the writer was banking on. Maybe I'm alone on this one.
The Lure combines Grimm-esque storytelling with campy euro-pop in a flashy spectacle that both wows and weirds you out. If you're familiar with the original fairytale of The Little Mermaid you'll notice there are a lot of similarities and nods to mermaid folklore. But, as much as I wanted to like this movie, it was just too bizarre to hook me (Pun intended). This film certainly isn't for everyone, but if you like your mermaids a little less Disney and a little more David Lynch, then you'll definitely want to track this one down.