Shudder Saturday: The Siren (2019)

The good thing about being connected with so many film fans online nowadays, and especially being connected to so many HORROR film fans, is that you can often find out about more movies you hadn't previously heard of, all thanks to one or two conversations that mention things within varying degrees of separation. The other good thing is meeting those film fans in the actual real world, and these two things came together to encourage me to view The Siren, after I enjoyed A Ghost Waits at a horror film festival, and then hearing from so many people who had already enjoyed MacLeod Andrews in this film, and the previous feature from writer-director Perry Blackshear, They Look Like People (which I will also need to check out).

BUT the first thing to mention about The Siren is that it isn't your standard horror movie. I feel like I say this a lot lately, especially with the selection that Shudder seem to pick for their streaming service, but it's always worth noting, to ensure people don't go into a good film with preconceptions that will spoil the experience for them. You need to go elsewhere if you're looking to fill the gap in between Hatchet movies (and I'm not denigrating those, I am just emphasising the big difference).

Evan Dumouchel is Tom, a man giving himself a break at a fairly isolated lakehouse. Tom is mute, and also doesn't like swimming. This is all explained when he meets a wandering neighbour, Al (Andrews). Al is a nice guy, but he's driven by a lot of pain and anger, convinced that his deceased husband was killed by a creature living in the lake, one that has caused a number of drownings over the years. That creature appears in the form of a lovely humanoid, named Nina (Margaret Ying Drake), and she finds a connection with Tom that seems to keep her more dangerous urges stifled.

Clocking in at about 80 minutes, The Siren is still a film that will test the patience of some viewers who want something with more action (although it delivers a couple of good, fleetingly shown, bits of gore in the 15 minutes). It's a film about people finding themselves inexplicably drawn to one another, leaving their history aside as they just focus on one another for their time together, and also looks at the pain of grieving for someone you lost so suddenly, and without being able to comprehend the circumstances of their death (given a fantastical element here, but applicable to any sudden death that you can't get your head around).

Dumouchel is a nice mix of subtlety and expressiveness in his non-talking role, Drake is often so sweet that it's easy to forget she's a lake-dwelling creature looking to drown victims, and Andrews is at his best during a scene in which he finally puts two and two together and cannot find a way to make it not equal four. I might be forgetting anyone else who makes a very brief appearance, but the film very much belongs to these three performers, and every one of them brings something to their respective roles.

Blackshear may make a number of small mistakes throughout, but they're forgivable when the end result comes together so satisfyingly. It's hard to pinpoint where he should have added some details and where he should have left things even more vague, but the balance feels ever so slightly off with some of the scenes that provide backstory, or don't. He does a good job, overall, and I'll be keeping an eye on his future film releases.

The Siren is definitely worth your time. The material is strong enough to compensate for the lower budget, and viewers are easily drawn in to a scenario that is both sweet and very dangerous. Check it out when you can.

8/10

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