One of my favorite new movies to me this year was “The Lure”. It’s Polish pop-funk gore/horror/romance/musical inspired by The Little Mermaid by Hans Christen Andersen. It’s different from the Disney version in that it is DARK as fuck, but also Andersen’s fable reads almost as a forewarning to not change your authentic self for love. The stakes are much higher for the O.G. Little Mermaid. She will lose her voice, and also the transition to human legs is some sort of body horror phenomenon.
“Every step she took was as the witch had said it would be, she felt as if treading upon the points of needles or sharp knives; but she bore it willingly, and stepped as lightly by the prince’s side as a soap-bubble, so that all who saw her wondered at her gracefully swaying movements.”
Ah women gracefully walking the world through immense pain. A tale as old as time.
Does her losing her voice symbolize the inability to scream through the pain? She suffers in silence, but look at the fucking STUD and she has a date on most major holidays.
The Lure tells the story of two mermaids who become part of a Night Club Musical act, and how they adapt to living as “Part of that World”. And it is fan-fucking-tastic.
I put this essay aside, this Substack aside this year. I’ve realized through the past few years, my confidence has wained. I’ve felt dumb, felt my opinions were trite or stupid. I have a few theories of what contributed to this, but all this to say it was hard to write this past year. I watched The Lure at the beginning of the year this year, which was full of hope and not the dark cloud this year ended up being for me. So when I would go to write about this movie, and what I loved about it, it became hard because it was hard to write about a time I felt happy and hopeful. This year was, by far, one of the most challenging of my life. And that is saying a lot, if you know me. This year, I continued to be ill with no medical answers, dealing with an unempathetic boss while having brain fog and nutrient deficiency fatigue; having to have a biopsy for breast cancer; unpacking years of childhood trauma that I’d digested and stored in my body as chronic pain and diarrhea and nausea and migraines, stress and over-achieving and self-harm. Everything came at me at once, somehow a surprise attack I knew was coming all along. So for a lot of this year, happy was painful. To think about being happy seemed a betrayal to myself, like seriously—-you were in the same therapy session I was, we’re gonna dance to pop Polish disco?
And yes, we are.
I watched this film, repeatedly throughout this year. I LOVE all that it has to say about sexualization of young girls, the underlying feminist current of the movie, the horror and gore aspect that really packed this visceral punch of body horror. Although there were scenes I cringed at, I would happily rewatch. I don’t think this surprises anyone.
The Lure also borrows The Sirens of Homer’s Odyssey, introducing us to our Mermaids, Gold and Silver, through a siren song to lure them to their fated union with a musical nightclub rock group who has a Father-Mother-Son vibe/familial unit but are definitely not related in the way. Or, we hope. The movie sort of walks this line of what is appropriate and inappropriate.
The mermaids hide out in human form in the green room of the rock band as they perform. The owner of the club smells a distinct odor of fish as he walks through the club, walking through and trying to determine the smell. He goes back to the green room and finds the two mermaids jumping on the couch. “Mom” returns and says they are children of a friend and she is taking care of them. She leaves and “Dad” comes back to reveal something ominous to the owner.
My friend has a theory that all billionaires are pedophiles. I’ve thought about this, is there something appealing about forbidden sexual acts if you can suddenly afford them? Why are so many men lured to taking sexual advantage of young girls?
The “Dad” lifts the girls legs to show they have no genitalia, they are “smooth as Barbie dolls”. You can see the owner thinking “but how do I fuck them?” And then water is splashed on them and they gracefully turn into mermaids. Again, the owner questions but how do I fuck them? And a small slit in the tail is revealed. The owner asks what body part it is connected to, and yes, it is their pleasure center. It looks like a vagina. The owner fingers the mermaid opening, caressing it gently. “The only problem is they smell like fish.” The owner, just recently appalled by the smell says “ehh it’s not that bad.” Smelling like a fish is small price to pay to get to fuck a mermaid.
In this story, as in the Hans Christian Anderson book, if a mermaid falls in love with someone, and that person falls in love and marries someone else, the mermaid must kill them, or she will be turned into sea foam. The sisters have very different reactions to their attraction to men. Gold falls in love with Man Child of the rock band, opting to have surgery to transition permanently to human if he will:
…then she will convert. And so she does. And then in her painful recovery, they have intercourse and she bleeds and he is grossed out and leaves her for another musician working at the club.
Silver, on the other hand, embraces her ability to lure men and use them as she pleases, which is to fuck them and then kill them. Silver has the most aversion to the perverted ways of men. In a weird pre-show ritual, the club owner smacks the butt of each performer, the rock group is used to it, Golden goes along, but Silver is like “dude, don’t touch me.”
When Man-Child ends up marrying the other girl, at the wedding Golden is reminded she has to kill him, or she will be turned to sea foam. She finds him after the wedding, hugs him and dissolves into sea foam. Silver kills him and then mosies back to the ocean, to head to another city to lure men and kill them, her distrust of men and disgust of them further confirmed.
This is a great movie to watch high, because it is so engrossing. The music is amazing, synthetic electric pop that grabs your attention. But more than the music, it is the overall sound design on this film that lures you into it. The movie is an operatic musical that lets the ambient sounds of this oceanic/nightclub world provide a melodic undertone throughout the film.
As a survivor, there’s something magical about seeing women (even in half amphibian form) take agency over their bodies. I started posting more pictures of myself on instagram, ones that highlighted my beauty and attractiveness. It made me nervous, because the male gaze is terrifying. But it also felt freeing to say, this is me, this is my body, it is mine to share and love, and me sharing photos or dressing “sexy” does not give anyone permission to take advantage of me. I did this until a guy I was seeing asked me why I post so many “thirst traps”. The tiny message that being sensual, admiring your own body, means you are a “slut” began to become louder, and the years of trauma manifested as fear in my body. It’s a hard thing to get over, not that statement that came across as an accusation, but the deeply ingrained judgement of any woman who embraces her sexuality or dares to imply they enjoy sex.
The Lure is streaming on The Criterion Channel, and was on MAX, maybe, I don’t know. It’s so worth checking out. I recommend a good indica strain to watch this with, ideally an edible so you can zone out and just let the film overtake you.
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