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Cast: Margaret Ying Drake, MacLeod Andrews, Evan Dumouchel
Tom (Evan Dumouchel, Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, 40 Days and Nights) is a mute man from a sheltered, religious background who is haunted by the childhood accident that cost him his voice. While on a retreat at a lake house, he meets Al (MacLeod Andrews, A Ghost Waits, Doctor Sleep), whose husband drowned in the lake-one of many mysterious deaths there.
The area is marked by a local legend of a lovelorn spirit who haunts the surrounding woods and drowns anyone she encounters. The legend proves all too real when Tom encounters the beautiful creature. Drawn to her immediately, Tom knows he has found his soulmate in the seemingly human Nina (Margaret Ying Drake, They Look Like People, 59 Seconds), who must battle to repress her demonic instincts when she feels the same toward him. Meanwhile, Al, possessed by vengeance, circles the pair, getting ever closer to tracking down the monster that destroyed his happy marriage.
Director/Writer, Perry Blackshear has created a very sober but thought provoking film and he has done it on a very limited budget. Which means there no over the top special effects here. Instead you get a story of love found, love lost tragedy and revenge wrapped up neatly into a its hour and 20 minute run time.
The film doesn't even have a whole lot of dialogue, instead we are given long extended scenes of Nina and Tom together and scenes of Nina day dreaming about being with Tome forever while doing her best to fight off her murderous instincts. On the other hand the film moves it a very slow pace, perhaps too slow which is going to make it a hard sell to mainstream movie goers. I would recommend this to fans of art house cinema, those that are use to watching films that are a bit different and at times a lot slower moving than big Hollywood releases.
Despite being a bit too slow the film over comes a good portion of it by having a cast that can deliver on this character driven drama. Evan Dumouchel and Margaret Ying Drake are terrific together as Tom and Nina. The chemistry has to be good and it is flawless here. MacLeod Andrews is also excellent as Al who the the man hell bent on serving up some vengeance. All three have worked together before which is guess is part of the reason why they play off each other so well.
'The Siren' is a well done film with an engaging story that just can't get up enough steam to keep a lot of people watching. Still I enjoyed the story and found it to be a worth while watch. The film is availble on DVD now so if it sounds like something you might like then check it out.
Released by Dark Sky Films
** 1/2 Out Of *****