Killer Mermaid

The Long
Fish Goodnight

Killer Mermaid
aka Mamula
aka Killer Mermaids
aka Nymph
Directed by Milan Todorovic
Serbia/Montenegro/Poland 2014
DVD Region 2

Warning: Some light spoilerage ensues.

Mamula or Killer Mermaid as it’s more commonly known (also Killer Mermaids in the UK, together with a wonderful DVD cover painting which totally misrepresents the film in almost every way) first came to my attention back in 2016. I was at the FrighFest they did that year in a shopping centre cinema somewhere near Shepherd’s Bush, sitting looking bored and lonely (as I probably usually am), either waiting for a friend to turn up or killing time before my next screening, when this curious guy sat down next to me and started up a conversation. Seeing as I’m inordinately English in my outlook, I was immediately suspicious of this intrusion into my personal space but he seemed like a nice chap and so I responded in kind. I told him about this blog and he told me about his new film he’d written, showing at that moment in one of the screens.,, called Downhill (I should probably check that one out at some point). And then he told me about his real ‘baby’ he’d wrote and presented a couple of years before, Mamula which had been rebranded Killer Mermaid.

So he was obviously Barry Keating, I think. And he told me the former film didn’t do as well as he’d liked/hoped. I promised I would keep a look out and review it for my blog at some point. And then we went our separate ways. But you know how time rushes by when you get past a certain age... I bought the DVD of the film the very next day but, yeah, it’s taken me 8 years to get around to watching it... sorry Barry.

But, heck, it was worth the wait. For me, anyway.

The film opens strongly with a cheesy song playing over home movie style footage credits of a young couple holidaying. Then, we join the two as the man is lured to the water by a siren song while the woman is brutally killed by someone with an anchor. As cold openings go, it’s not bad.

The set up to the film involves two American tourists, Kelly played by Kristina Klebe and Lucy played by Natalie Burn. Lucy was once seeing a college friend years before and so the girls go to meet him for a Mediterranean holiday in Montenegro. The guy also has his new fiancé in tow, which doesn’t go down well with Lucy but the four, and then five when a friend of the fiancé turns up, decide to go for a look at an abandoned, derelict prison island that Kelly spotted.

A local guy called Niko, looking for his lost daughter (who turns out to be the girl from the opening), warns them about going to the island, which was used for nazi concentration camp style experiments during the war. And Niko is played wonderfully well by the great Franco Nero. Anyway, when the kids get to the island, their boat is destroyed and it turns out both the killer mermaid of the title (well, half siren, half mermaid... there’s definitely some artistic licence here) and the anchor killer are there, hunting them... since the anchor killer wants to chop them up for food for his beloved mermaid.

If that sounds like a B movie horror plot set up to you then... okay, it is... but it’s an incredibly well made one, I have to say. The acting by pretty much all the cast is superb, with standout work from Klebe and, of course, Nero looking wonderfully intimidating and capable.  But it’s not just that... the film looks a gazillion bucks, so to speak. I’m assuming it’s a fairly low budget movie but what the cinematographer manages to get on screen is fantastic. Beautiful framing and wonderful colours (especially in some of the underwater shots)... it just makes everything look amazing. Even when stuff is borrowed from other films... such as when ‘anchor guy’ is slowly decapitating one of the main characters and the camera follows the motion of his axe as he chops away at the neck, presumably in homage to the scene in The Shining when Jack Nicholson chops through the door... it’s done in a very different way and doesn’t pop you out of the picture like it might have.

Now, my one slight gripe (because I had to have one, right?) is the slight telegraphing involved with the identity of the anchor killer guy. The film almost goes out of its way to imply it’s a certain person early on when, in fact, it turns out to be someone unknown to the cast of characters. I just thought the hints were a bit heavy handed and so I was pretty sure it wouldn’t turn out to be the character the film obviously wanted me to think it was. However, this was more than paid back when what I thought would be a very obvious, if somewhat laboured, twist towards the end of the movie... didn’t happen. Thank goodness... credibility would possibly have been out the window if what I was expecting to happen actually did occur.

So, honestly, I really enjoyed this movie and would love to upgrade this one to Blu Ray sometime if I get the opportunity... it looks pretty good. Killer Mermaid is a particularly fun horror movie and I’d recommend this one to most fans of the ‘monster movie’ genre, for sure. I mean... good acting, beautiful cinematography, nudity, gore and Franco Nero. What could possibly go wrong?