For every cinematic hook that pierced and captivated the hearts of horror fans, a sudden glut of similar, if not almost identical, features would quickly follow.
In the 1980s, that hook was slasher movies, which became the latest movie sensation in the wake of John Carpenter’s seminal Halloween.
In the mid-2000’s, it was vampire movies, particularly ones featuring brooding, angsty, shimmering bloodsuckers, which was quickly eclipsed by zombie films, buoyed by the small-screen TV success of AMC’s The Walking Dead adaptation.
Finding an original idea or character or creative creature and/or killer became almost as difficult as locating a Nintendo Classic Mini NES gaming system this holiday season.
For every new take on an existing subgenre of horror, there was a worthless cash grab of a reboot or remake of a cult classic film that needed no tinkering or reimagining.
In 2012, Brad Miska, originator of the popular horror website bloodydisgusting.com, conceived of a way to reinvigorate the horror anthology, a mixed-bag subgenre defined by more misses (Nightmares, Tales from the Hood) than genuine hits (Creepshow, Trick ‘r Treat).
He commissioned a group of talented young directors to craft a series of short films with a specific hook — each of the films would be shot POV-style utilizing the latest technology, from Google Glass to GoPro cameras.
The result was V/H/S, and it was at once fantastic and surprisingly effective. It also spawned a franchise, resulting in one great sequel and one so-so sequel.
But what worked best in the original film stayed in the minds of fans, and one of the best — if not the best — original characters introduced in V/H/S was Lily, a sweet-faced, naïve woman with a deadly secret, who was conceived by director David Bruckner and introduced in the first short film segment, Amateur Night. Lily terrorized a group of loathsome Lotharios after being picked up at a local bar and brought back to a dingy motel-no-tell room. And the final frame of Lily, sprouting wings from her back, razor-sharp claws for fingers and an unsettling rupture of split skin down her face, hoisting the last surviving douchebag into the air and flying away, was truly memorable.
Fast forward four years, and SiREN is Lily’s official, feature-length coming out story. Stepping into Bruckner’s shoes as director is Gregg Bishop, who also worked on the V/H/S franchise and whose 2008 horror-comedy Dance of the Dead was considered one of that year’s best genre films.
This fantastic creature feature is everything fans could want. It has a group of believable, but not overbearing, friends going off on a weekend excursion to celebrate a bachelor party. It has a mysterious supernatural summoning ceremony. It has a wickedly erotic private fetish club in the middle of a graveyard bayou. And it has Lily, who we finally learn is a siren, the mythical creature of lore capable of summoning men to their doom.
Only in SiREN, Lily isn’t free to wander the world looking for prey. She has been neutralized by the charming and evil Mr. Nyx, who keeps her caged at his fetishistic boudoir in the bayou to service patrons with her supernatural aura.
Nyx is a great character and perfectly played by Justin Welborn with just the right mixture of menace and whimsy.
The group of friends, groom-to-be Jonah, his loutish brother Mac, along with buds Rand and Elliott, end up at a dive-bar strip club in South Carolina where they meet a mysterious guy who tells them about this secret fetish house hidden away. They follow him to Nyx’s club and what they discover is an amazing smorgasbord of bare flesh and free-flowing drinks. Then they meet Nyx and everything goes to hell, literally.
What Bishop manages to do in expanding Bruckner’s short is revelatory. Not only does he provide a plausible set-up, but the backstory and mythology presented for Lily is both rewarding and satisfying. More than that, Bishop pays particular attention to the small details, which serve to elevate SiREN well-above a blatant cash grab and transform it into a shining example of the good that can happen when a spin-off gets everything right.
Nyx’s club is by far one of the best, and much arousing, alternative fetish clubs ever put in a genre film, which usually reduces such locations to a bunch of goth kids in guyliner dancing to Bauhaus. His supernatural predilections, including the possibly-mythical creatures he employs, and particularly the leeches that he uses to absorb the best memories of patrons as payment for them getting busy with his girls, are original and unexpected.
And Lily herself gets a slight makeover in that her appearance remains true to Amateur Night with the successful addition of a tail, her siren’s song and some unique mating rituals. All the credit goes to Hannah Fierman, who portrays Lily in both films. Her brilliant, wide eyes, blank expression and seductive cooing amplify and drive home the belief that she absolutely could lure most men to an awful fate.
When Lily goes on the attack, she is a fearsome and formidable foe. And, rightfully so, when she goes on the make, and claims Jonah as her would-be baby siren daddy, she is just as fearsome with a dash of seductive temptress thrown in for good measure.
SiREN delivers the boobs, the blood and several rousing bursts of brutal violence to justify BVB’s endorsement. But it’s more than that — it’s just a truly solid horror film that doesn’t muck up its potential by trying to do too much or be something more than what it is.
In short, go seek it out, now!
SiREN is currently available on most streaming video-on-demand platforms, as well as in limited theatrical release.
SiREN
Genre: Horror/Spin-Off
Directed by: Gregg Bishop
Run time: 82 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Format: Video-on-Demand
The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Hannah Fierman is creepy hot.
Nudity – Yes.
Gore – Considerable.
Drug use – Yes.
Bad Guys/Killers – Mr. Nyx and his evil leeches.
Buy/Rent – Yes.
Released – December 6, 2016
This article appears in Dec 22-29, 2016.