(Streamed via Crackle)
Kelly (Kristina Klebe, from Rob Zombie’s Halloween) and Lucy (Natalie Burn) go to Montenegro to hang out with an old college friend (Slobodan Stefanovic) and his bride to-be (Sofija Rajovic), leading to a lot of sunbathing, swimming, and infidelity. They hear about an old abandoned military base on a remote island and decide it’s the perfect spot for a vacation getaway. What they don’t tell you in the brochure is the place used to be home to Nazi experiments. Once there, the gang are menaced by a deranged killer (Miodrag Krstovic) who stalks the grounds and acts as caretaker to a bloodthirsty siren of the sea (Zorana Kostic Obradovic).
Basically, it’s Splash Meets Piranha with a bit of The Grim Reaper thrown in there.
Killer Mermaid kicks off with a solid opening that immediately grabs your attention. After the main title comes up, it promptly releases your attention, leaving you to flounder for the next ninety minutes. Then you have to put up with a lot of long scenes of our heroines lollygagging around. Once they finally shove off and make their way to the island, the pace moves even slower, if you can believe it. From there, we get a lot of scenes of the girls walking down dark hallways, shining flashlights about, and saying stuff like, “Guys… where are you… this isn’t funny anymore”. On top of that, you have to deal with the subplot about the killer caretaker plunging an oversized fishhook into people’s necks, which eats up a lot of screen time.
If you can’t already tell, it takes a long time for the Killer Mermaid to do her thing. Once she finally does, it really isn’t worth the wait as the climax is sorry, soggy, and unsatisfying. The long, drawn-out set-up for a sequel is particularly unnecessary. It’s a shame too because the scenes of her luring the awestruck men to their impending doom had potential.
At least we have Franco Fuckin’ Nero turning up as a menacing looking sailor who warns the friends, “That island is drenched in blood!” He also gets a USS Indianapolis-type monologue about losing his men on an ill-fated voyage. Eventually, he gets quite a bit of screen time near the very end, but even then, his talents are wasted in this stinky fish tale.
AKA: Killer Mermaids. AKA: Nymph. AKA: Mamula.
I thought this one was pretty good.
ReplyDelete