Mamula

This little film from Serbia directed by Milan Todorovic is based on a story by Marko Backovic and transformed into a screenplay by Barry Keating and Milan Konjevic. It will satisfy the current voracious appetite for horror stories that serve substantial amounts of gore to audiences who love that sort of thing. With an unknown cast the director relies on the presence of Franco Nero to bring a bit of credibility to an otherwise incredulous story.

Two American girls travel to Montenegro on vacation to visit an old friend, playboy Alex who unbeknownst to the girls is now engaged. They decide to venture to Mamula, a former prison island and Nazi concentration camp that houses a horrendous evil. During their exploration of the fortress they discover that they are not alone: a sinister fisherman named Niko (Franco Nero) is seen disposing of human remains in a well and everyone realizes they are in mortal danger. Someone else is on the island with them and he will stop at nothing to protect it's secrets. There is a darkness hidden beneath the island and the terror has just begun – the killer mermaid.

As if there weren't enough of this type of tale on television for free they continue to light up the marquee. As long as there is an audience there will be more. In Serbian and English with subtitles. Grady Harp, September 14

Surprisingly enough, it was a decent movie after all. The plot is kinda used, same for the action development but all in all a decent attempt at a horror movie that did not rely so much on gore or nudity. I said it did not rely THAT much, but those 2 trade marks will make their appearances here and there.

So, if you are too bored, nothing to do, and it is quite late, this is not the worse way to pass the time. The beginning looks very cheap and dumb, but it gets better with time. Once you see the "nymph" itself, you realize that they might have been saving for the design of the creature, explaining why the deaths are so weak and dull. Very few things I can think of to pass on, in the end, I suggest you just give it a try, cause you can do a lot worse than this one.

Nymph, a movie that almost got a grade of 5 from me, but ultimately, I strongly believe it will be a 4.2-4.4 tops. Not bad, but nothing out of the ordinary either, a simple production, that you might find yourself talking one time. Who knows...

Cheers!

Two young American women go on a Mediterranean vacation and uncover the watery lair of a killer mermaid hidden beneath an abandoned military fortress. What was once a carefree adventure becomes a deadly fight for survival.

So, the film has gone through a few title changes: from "Mimula" to "Killer Mermaid" to "Nymph". The first one is the most accurate, other than that no one knows what that is. The second sounds like a SyFy film. The third is sort of close. Really ,they ended up with a mermaid mixed with a siren. What would that be called?

There is some great use of color, although the camera has an odd tendency to "float" rather than focus on the subjects. There is also some awkward English, but given that this is in Serbia, that really should be expected.

Anyway, not terrible, but it does not even come close to the original mermaid horror film: "Night Tide".

That's the best I can say about the movie. It delivers every cliché in the book and there are lines of dialog, that were openly laughed at, at the Screening at Frightfest. While director and stars are invited I always feel sort of bad for them, but it wasn't an issue at the Q&A afterwards, which was a good thing.

The actors are all pretty, but some struggle with their lines (especially those whose first language isn't English!). Franco Nero might seem like a lighthouse, but considering the demands he made to be in the movie, it might have been better, if he actually wasn't. He brings some sort of gravitas, but he has some speeches that feel endless and stop the movie entirely. Not that it was up and running in high speed, but still.

There is some nudity and blood to satisfy those needs, but it does not help make this a fun movie. While the poster (english title "Nymph"), promised something entertaining, it couldn't deliver in the way "Zombeaver" did ...

For a movie called "Killer Mermaid" this has surprisingly very little mermaid action in it, it takes an hour before the promised killer mermaid action actually starts (unless you count the beginning teaser).

In the first 30 minutes or so it still kept my interest a bit, a lot having to do with the beautiful Serbia Monetenegro landscape that I haven't really seen in a movie before.

The characters also feels a little more three-dimensional than the usual 2d stereotypes that cheap creature features like this usually offers.

Not that any of the characters are all that interesting tho and once the action does start in the second half the clichés starts piling up.

The acting is okay although the accents get a little distracting from time to time and make the dialog sound unnatural for most of the cast.

It's not the worst movie I've seen or anything but it's not particularly good either, if you're looking for a mermaid horror movie I suggest SHE CREATURE (2001) instead.