Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

gizmomogwai There's been a rather polarizing response to this film, and perhaps it's not hard too see why. The Lure, a horror-musical mermaid movie (yes, really), made the rounds through the Fantasia Film Festival, to international release, and then to The Criterion Collection. But some people aren't buying. It is strange- that's part of the interest- but horror-musicals aren't unprecedented. The Wicker Man got there first, all the way back in 1973. The Lure boasts a lot of visual appeal, and not just in the frequently topless young woman. The colour scheme is sumptuous and poetic throughout. The music is actually engaging, though I don't usually go in for musicals. The mermaids themselves have a shocking beauty to them, a kind of animalistic viciousness scary and seductive all at once. The story, though somewhat simplistic, goes down well. Even if you're not interested in ponying up the dough for the Blu-ray, it's worth heading to Criterion's YouTube channel and investing $3.99. If you're in the mood, this will hit.

Nefeli Forni I truly believe "The Lure" to be an authentic movie that invites the audience to experience a great cinematic delight. It is original in its settings and narrative, with interesting characters and incredible scenes. The movie gives us the pleasure of the unexpected. Highly recommendable and a must for cinephiles.

cliffordo-33234 Foreign films can be so refreshing. So let's see. It's about mermaids. Fantasy. That eat people. Horror. Who fall in love. Love story. And there's lots of singing and dancing. Musical. The songs are decent, but the lyrics sound like they were written by a crack addict. Could it really have lost that much in the translation? Oh, its Polish, so its subtitled. The acting and directing are generally well done. However, it feels like they took it out of the oven and released it before the film was done. So sometimes, it is touching and beautiful, with a classy European style, and other times, it is stupid beyond words. It is a take-off on the myth about the mermaid who tries to be a human girl when she falls in love. And that is all about sacrifice on the one hand, and being true to our nature on the other. A very unusual movie, especially for a director's debut film.

ReganRebecca It was hard picking a rating for the movie because the highs are so high and the lows are so low. One thing is for sure though, The Lure is definitely worth seeing, preferably on the big screen.The film starts on the banks of a dirty river where a family are singing and drinking. They encounter two young girls in the water, sirens who sing about wanting to be lifted out of the water. The family, who turn out to form a band in a sleazy cabaret, see an opportunity to use the girls for their own purposes and they soon have them performing as a sort of singing/strip tease act the highlight of which is when at the end of their song they dive into the water and their land legs transform bag into their fish tails. Let's get one thing straight: the script for The Lure isn't big on making sense. Characters drop in and out to explain exposition in a ham-handed fashion, the musical numbers are scattered infrequently throughout the movie and the English lyrics are difficult to parse and seem to have little relation to what's going on on screen.Yet somehow the movie still contains a lot of charm. First time director Agnieszka Smoczynska seems to be having a ball co-ordinating the cheap glitzy glamour of the musical numbers. Actresses Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszanska are great in their roles as sister sirens Silver and Gold imbuing them with innocence even when their sleazy guardians use them both sexually and financially. The movie flits with deeper themes like emotional heartbreak, sisterhood, exploitation, sex, work etc. but the script never gives more than a handful of minutes to each issue so they're never fully explored. That's too bad but at the same time if you turn your brain off and just try to enjoy the movie you're in for a wild ride like nothing you've ever seen before.