The Lure

Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska

2015 / 92min / DCP

Smoczyńska’s splashy debut, an idiosyncratic, coming-of-age musical fantasy that’s something like the product of a collaboration between Esther Williams and a depraved Hans Christian Andersen, stars Michalina Olszańska and Marta Mazurek as Gold and Silver, cannibalistic sister mermaids who use their siren singing to seduce and destroy mere mortals, themselves seduced into show biz by cabaret singer/impresario Kinga Preis, who makes the duo the star attraction at a particularly sleazy gentleman’s club. “A retro horror musical with a satirical thrust, buckets of blood, and a lurid, morbid eroticism… One of those perverse, intense, facetious yet perfectly earnest films that never stops having a good time.” —Film Comment