I never thought I’d live to see a film that simultaneously reminded me of the work of both Jean Rollin and Guy N. Smith, the unlikely achievement of The Mermaid’s Curse, a film that also manages to tap into two of men’s biggest fears: women and being cannibalised by them!
Workshy, is something the director of this film, Louisa Warren, is never likely to be accused of. Despite only having film directing credits going back to 2018, Warren currently has 13 feature films to her name. That is more feature films than her British horror namesake Norman J Warren managed during the course of his entire career. In another career parallel, both Warrens began their filmmaking careers in the world of softcore erotica, before finding their career footing in low-budget horror instead. Louisa Warren’s earliest screen credits, Dirty Work, which she directed, and Darker Shades of Elise, which she produced, being attempts to mine the then lucrative 50 Shades of Grey market.
This fishy tale takes us away from the bright lights and BDSM of London and to the seaside town of Worthing, West Sussex, where according to local legend men folk are being lured to their death by the seductive singing of a cannibalistic Sea Siren (Rebecca Finch). Most women love a sailor or a cage fighter, but couldn’t eat a whole one. However, the Sea Siren of Worthing is the exception to the rule, and proves the extent of her carnivorous appetite in the opening scene of the film, when she devours a randy cage fighter and his girlfriend, who’ve crept onto Worthing beach for a bit of the other. The discovery of the cage fighter’s blood splattered Hyundai the next morning, brings not only the attention of the police, but Jake (Tom Hendryk), a young American journalist who works for a local newspaper. Investigating a cannibalistic sea siren, proves to be just the diversion that Jake needs, his private life having itself hit turbulent waters. Jake recently walked in on his girlfriend cheating on him with his roommate Cameron (A.J. Blackwell), another American who while not meant to be a cage fighter, certainly comes across like one, as the two men go at it hammer and tongs, getting in each other’s faces and threatening “don’t ya push me” as if they’re about to jump into the ring.
Wandering around Worthing beach in the early morning, the lonely, heartbroken Jake proves to be the ideal candidate to fall under the seductive spell of the sea siren, whose beauty and singing are able to turn red blooded men to jelly...although given the south coast setting maybe that should be...turn red blooded men to jellied eels. When Jake encounters the Sea Siren on the beach, she isn’t...it’s fair to say...looking her best. The result of a night on the tiles that has left her with a couple of stab wounds, courtesy of a fisherman, who managed to get a few slashes of the knife in, before the Sea Siren gobbled him up. Taking the injured woman home with him, Jake is persuaded against calling an ambulance by the Sea Siren. Then when Jake’s back is turned, (rushing out to the nearest off-license to pick up medical supplies) the Siren turns to self medicating by seducing and devouring Cameron. A turn of events that does wonders for the Sea Siren’s complexion, the devouring of human flesh, curing both her injuries and restoring her to her former beauty, her body having a habit of decaying if she doesn’t get a regular fix of flesh and blood.
As romance blossoms between man and siren, Jake quickly becomes consumed by his obsession for the mystery woman, and alienated from his friends and workmates...which isn’t hard to do when his new girlfriend is intent on eating all of them.
The Mermaid’s Curse is one of two films Warren made in 2019, linked by the theme of doomed romances that even from the outset are clearly not going to end well. Its thematic companion piece being Warren’s sci-fi movie ‘Cyber Bride’, in which a widower commissions a robotic replica of his recently murdered wife, only for her to malfunction and turn on his friends, neighbours and pet dog. Both films share the same leading lady, Rebecca Finch, who leaves her mark in two similar, but very difficult roles. Cyber Bride needing you to buy into the idea that Finch is in fact a machine, while The Mermaid’s Curse requires her to play a major role largely mute, yet Finch’s alluring, otherworldly presence as an alternatively sensual and violent character is one of these films’ strongest elements. The Mermaid’s Curse and Cyber Bride, both definitely represent a step in the right direction for Warren, the pair are lively, involving and busy films, suggesting that the pacing issues which marred some of her earlier forays into horror, are being ironed out. For additional oomph, Warren trots out a few other sea sirens, who keeping the blood flowing by emerging from the sea to chow down on more horny revellers, and occasionally move inland to stalk their prey through the back alleys of Worthing. There is also a subplot, involving an old sea dog Mr. Andrews (Tony Manders), whose wild, initially disbelieved tales about the ladies of the water appear to tie the sea sirens to the Salem witch trials.
The Mermaid’s Curse is actually a remake of a film from 2015 called ‘Deadly Waters’. An early Scott Jeffrey production that starred Becca Hirani in the siren role....both of whom have gone on to become significant players in 21st century British horror. Hirani, acting in genre films, sometimes under the name Becky Fletcher, and directing and producing under the name Rebecca J. Matthews. It is not uncommon for modern British horror filmmakers to revisit their old films, and attempt more moneyed and professional takes on the same material. 2017’s House on Elm Lake is a remake of a 2014 film called Lucifer’s Night, and Hirani/Matthews’ recent 2020 film The Candy Witch reworks a few of the themes of 2017’s Mother Krampus. It would certainly be interesting to compare and contrast The Mermaid’s Curse with Deadly Waters, but...despite only being five years old...the earlier film appears to have disappeared into the great blue yonder.
The Mermaid’s Curse follows in the footsteps of recent Scott Jeffrey films by being a brand of British horror that is slightly tailored to the American market, presumably with an eye on selling the film at places like Walmart and US streaming services. In the past British horror films that have gone down this route have had to completely forgo their nationality, making their entire casts adopt US accents and disguising their locations by favouring interior shooting. A position that left many British horror films from the 1980s and 1990s...Slaughter High, Breeders and Grimm... distinctly lacking in personality and atmosphere. Fortunately, more recent genre films by Warren and Jeffrey aren’t quite as compromised. If anything Warren and Jeffrey seem to be having their cake and eating it, making films that are rich in very British atmosphere and locations, yet keep the US market sweet by being filled with young, American characters. The Mermaid’s Curse, like Jeffrey’s Cupid and Don’t Speak, taking place in a version of Britain that is heavily populated by Americans, whose accents don’t always ring true. The only cast members who are exempt from American accents in The Mermaid’s Curse being the actresses playing the sirens, characters who communicate using gargling, fishy noises, and more mature cast members Tony Manders and Kate Lush who are allowed to play their roles with their British accents intact. The discrepancy between the film’s locations and its characters does prove to be a source of awkward amusement in The Mermaid’s Curse, as Warren and her cast stage a plot that often feels like it should by taking place on the sunny beaches of California, rather than a freezing cold, off-season Worthing. In reality, the selection of rocks and pebbles that dares to call itself a beach, the deserted pier and amusement arcade settings, have more in common with the southern, seaside seediness of Pete Walker’s The Big Switch, The Flesh and Blood Show and Michael Winner’s Dirty Weekend, but Warren and Co valiantly do their best to sell the location as a credible spring breaker destination. In the world of The Mermaid’s Curse, young horny Americans turn to Worthing, West Sussex as a place to party hard. A cute, catchy l’ttle pop song, which sounds like something Madonna or Kylie Minogue might have recorded circa 1989, accompanies three doomed Americans as they ecstatically win a cheap cuddly toy on the pier, roast marshmallows, make out on the beach and go skinny dipping, before their inevitable encounter with the bloodthirsty sirens.
For all of the transatlantic aspects to The Mermaid’s Curse, it is a film that also illustrates the current cultural differences between UK and US horror fare. In the post Sharknado era, low budget US horror films tend to gravitate towards the winking, played for laughs, mockbuster approach, whereas for the likes of Warren, Hirani and Jeffrey, horror is a comparatively serious business. Some cringe worthy, but mercifully brief, meta dialogue at the start of The Mermaid’s Curse “if it were a horror film, you’d only die if you get your tits out” being Warren’s only concession to the tongue in cheek brigade. Either due to low budgets or personal preferences, CGI also tends to be eschewed in current British horror, in favour of the more traditional approach of throwing stage blood over actors. Warren in particular has an obvious fondness for very red looking stage blood, which personally I’d take over bad CGI any day. Even if it does at times admittedly look like characters have fallen victim to an explosion in a strawberry jam factory rather than a pack of sea sirens.
The frequent visits to the shoreline, striking images of women emerging from the water and the tragic romance at the heart of the film lends The Mermaid’s Curse a certain Jean Rollin-esque quality, but it is equally reminiscent of the trashiest of 1980s horror paperbacks, what with its parade of dumb, sex crazy characters going to their deaths on British beaches. If you ignore the fact that its sea sirens rather than giant crabs doing the flesh-eating, this might be the closest anyone has come to putting Guy N. Smith on the screen. The dialogue tending to get a bit Garth Marenghi at times, “get away from me, you sea bitch!!!” being a standout in that respect.
While I’m unsure whether Warren herself is a horror buff, or someone who has merely drifted into working in the genre, The Mermaid’s Curse does appear to offer many call-backs to British horror cinema’s past. The Siren puts her sea sister underlings in their place when they attempt to feast on Jake, recalling Christopher Lee’s Dracula exerting his dominance over his vampire brides in Hammer Horror films, and the Siren’s appearance and sexual hold over men gives The Mermaid’s Curse the appearance of a small scale, bedsit version of Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce.
Within her own filmography, The Mermaid’s Curse is yet another Warren film to use ‘Querioo’ as a plot device. Querioo being a Yahoo/Google like internet search engine (right down to aping the Google logo) that characters in modern British horror films tend to turn to whenever they need to brush up on their knowledge of sea sirens, evil scarecrows, the tooth fairy, etc etc. I’m sad enough to look up whether Querioo actually exists, and indeed, there really is such an internet search engine. Inevitably though Querioo is less handy when it comes to researching monsters and the supernatural in real life than it is in the movies. To save you the trouble of doing so, running terms like ‘cannibalistic sea sirens of Worthing’ through the real-life Querioo, just brings you to the same handful of film industry links that running anything else through Querioo does. In Warren’s films however, clicking onto Querioo always leads to a cameo by Youtube star Shaun C. Phillips, alias Coolduder, who has managed to become a British horror film regular...seemingly without ever leaving his couch in Baltimore. These little cameo roles presumably being sent to the producers via Skype. For those keeping record, Coolduder has popped up as a cyber dating expert in Cyber Bride, a tooth fairy expert in The Tooth Fairy, a scarecrow expert in Bride of Scarecrow, and expanded his Brit horror career beyond Warren’s films by recently cameo-ing as a candy witch expert in Hirani/Matthews’ The Candy Witch. In The Mermaid’s Curse, Coolduder adds to his growing reputation as an all round know-it-all by bringing his excitable, rosy cheeked, enthusiasm to the role of a sea siren expert, whose viral video gets checked out by Jake and his ex-girlfriend on their laptop. Thanks to these Coolduder cameos there is a case for all these films being part of shared cinematic universe, whilst also positing Coolduder as the Youtube generation’s answer to Edgar Lustgarten.
Aside from keeping Coolduder in gainful employment, British horror cinema has been considerably raising its game recently. Low budgets and tight schedules haven’t stopped Warren developing an ambitious streak of late, even branching out into historical adventure movies, including the horror/historical crossover ‘Pagan Warrior’ which...would you believe...pits Vikings against Krampus. Hirani/Matthews’ films Pet Graveyard and The Candy Witch are- despite their off-puttingly unoriginal titles- well worthy of your perusal, and Scott Jeffrey in particular has been knocking it out of the park, with the strong run of ....Don’t Speak, Cupid, Clown Doll and The Final Scream. The latter of which features both Hirani and Warren in acting roles, the world of modern British horror films being a very small one... fer’sure. I doubt 2020 is likely to go down as anyone’s favourite year, but as far as British horror films are concerned, these are truly exciting times to be alive.
For a film called The Mermaid’s Curse, the word ‘mermaid’ and indeed any part woman, part fish action is notably absent here. Although in fairness to Warren, The Mermaid’s Curse sounds suspiciously like a distributor insisted re-titling, Warren’s original, shooting title apparently being ‘Witches of the Water’. Call it what you will, this is a film that –in the minds of Americans who buy horror films from Walmart at least- will forever make Worthing, West Sussex synonymous with cannibalistic sea sirens. Quite what the residents of Worthing will make of it is anyone’s guess, particularly the chap who inadvertently cameos in the film by staring out of his hotel room window during filming. A man who may well go through life forever wondering why people were stripping down to Ann Summers underwear and talking with pseudo American accents on the beach that night- unless of course he logs on to Querioo for an answer.
