Halloween is upon us, which means we’ve reached the conclusion of another wildly successful Octoberween. Through the Ancient Magicks of seasonal film criticism, we’ve unlocked so many holiday vibes for ourselves and for you, our twelve dedicated readers. Second Breakfast celebrated the original Gentleman of Action, Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, with a terrifying double feature. I kicked it old school and new school with The Mummy, Trap, and Smile 2. Today, Strange Bacon made a welcome return with Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, and /horror gave us all our folk horror fix with British chiller Starve Acre. Truly an Octoberween bounty.

These are the cherished memories that make Octoberween one of the great family holidays, and certainly the best family holiday that I personally invented*. Speaking of which, I’m capping things off with a fairy tale about a pair of mermaid sisters…that you should probably not watch with your family.

The Lure (2015):

The Plot: Mermaid sisters Srebrna (Marta Mazurek) and Zlota (Michalina Olszanska), intrigued by the sights and sounds of 1980s Warsaw, emerge from the river and join a cabaret. Initially strippers and backup singers for the band Figs n’ Dates–comprised of singer Krysia (Kinga Preis), drummer Perkusista (Andrzej Konopka), and bassist Mietek (Jakub Gierszal)–the duo soon grown in popularity and form their own act, known as The Lure. Tensions rise between the sisters when Srebrna falls in love with Mietek and considers becoming human, while Zlota stays true to her mermaid nature and begins killing local men and eating their hearts. Will Srebrna’s bittersweet first romance lead to happiness or tragedy? Will the sisters reconcile their differences? Let’s just say this version of “The Little Mermaid” is more Hans Christian Andersen than Walt Disney…

The Lure packs a lot of disparate elements into 92 minutes. I often describe it as a “Polish disco mermaid fairy tale”, which is reasonably accurate. It’s grimy yet beautiful, a full blown musical that straddles the line between the fantastical and the mundane. The cabaret where the sisters perform is a seedy place of broken dreams and leering men, but there’s an undercurrent of romantic melancholy to the proceedings. Krysia and Perkusista are middle-aged, probably too long in this sordid world to have any expectation of leaving it for greener pastures. They bring the sisters back to the cabaret because that’s where they live and work, so where else would they go?

For all the female nudity–there is a lot–The Lure isn’t interested in catering to the male gaze. Director Agnieszka Smoczynska keeps her focus on the sisters, who barely seem to notice or mind that their new friends have immediately led them into sex work. Zlota especially views their surroundings with an almost clinical remove at times. To her, this is all just a vacation, a chance to observe food in its natural habitat before returning to the water and swimming on to America. Srebrna, like the little mermaid in Andersen’s tale, is dazzled by the human world and smitten with the first cute boy she sees. Mietek may not be a prince, but he’s handsome and worldly. Like the prince, he’s also kind of a clueless jerk, but here he’s a slightly more active participant in the mermaid’s downfall.

I bring up “The Little Mermaid” because, despite their obvious differences, The Lure does draw a fair amount from the classic fairy tale: The naive mermaid, the indifferent prince, the legs-for-voice bargain, even the threat of death by sea foam (if you need a refresher, you can read it online here). Though the mermaids of The Lure are able to transform their fish tails into human legs at will, their human lower halves don’t include genitals. Mietek sees Srebrna as more fish than woman because he can’t have sex with her (and also because she has a giant fish tail). Rather than making a deal with a sea witch, Srebrna goes to a shady doctor who agrees to swap her fish tail with the lower half of a willing human woman who presumably wants to be a mermaid (she’s never seen or referred to again after the operation). Becoming human robs Srebrna of her voice, but she’s aware of the cost before she makes her decision.

In both versions, the mermaid has some agency over her own fate, though one could argue that she’s led astray by a thoughtless man and punished unfairly by harsh mermaid lore. “The Little Mermaid” can be read as a warning to young women living in a restrictive society not to risk their lives and reputations by having sex with men who don’t intend to marry them. Or, less bleakly but more flippantly, it’s a warning not to overcommit to a crush. Given that it was written in the 1830s, I would lean toward the former. The lessons of The Lure are a bit less clear-cut.

If the film has a thesis, I think it can be found in the song “The Loop”, which plays over a montage of the sisters emerging from the river to feed on innocent victims, while back at the apartment, the members of Figs ‘n Dates slowly revive from painful hangovers the morning after a drunken fight. Each character is struggling against the tide of his or her own nature: “Poison inside you/that’s what the smell is/but is it done? Is it done? Is it done?” They may be trapped by inherent flaws, society, and mermaid lore, but they remain valiantly defiant in the face of it all.

Without revealing the fates of the characters, I’ll say that they feel fittingly inexorable. And yet…this isn’t a fatalistic movie. The characters and their world can be cynical, but the film finds beauty even in bitterness and disappointment. Temporary comfort is still worth having, because in the end, all comfort is temporary. The Lure is filled to the brim with moments of humor and tender romance, placed right alongside bloody violence, slimy fish tails, and not-so-tender sexual desires. It’s a movie of contradictions that works by simply acting as if they all fit together. Putting it like that, how could this have been anything but a musical?

The songs, written by sisters Barbara and Zuzanna Wrońska, cover a wide range of tones while always staying true to the characters’ emotions. Musical numbers include cabaret acts, romantic duets, an exuberant shopping montage with dozens of extras, and more half-eaten human hearts than most song and dance routines.

I’ve seen The Lure twice now and look forward to watching it again. That having been said, do I think you’ll like it? I honestly have no idea, though I expect you’ll know within the first 10 minutes whether you’re on its wavelength or not. As much as I like the film, I really don’t think I can fault anyone who doesn’t. It is…a lot. Then again, how many Polish disco mermaid fairy tales have you seen lately?

The Lure is currently streaming on Max, and is available for rent on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

Until next time, Happy Halloween! Later days.

*Will I be keeping up the “family holiday” schtick next Octoberween? Only time will tell. Time and future blog posts, I guess.