Holy Crap! "The Lure"

A couple of mermaids slink out of the sea to dry land in order to fulfill their dreams of being lounge singers in what looks like 1980s Poland.

Newcomer Agnieszka Smoczynska unleashes a trippy fever dream, a nostalgic horror musical with a generous amount of young female flesh, albeit mostly "smooth down there." The director creates a claustrophobic atmosphere centered around a seedy nightclub run by an old sleazeball.

In the opening scene, the mermaid girls peer from the sea uttering incantations, vowing to be as normal as possible -- which means ditching those fins, singing for a living and refraining from eating men. They mostly succeed. They grow legs on dry land, if not a complete set of anatomical parts. They flash fangs whenever they get too close to a juicy neck.

Silver (Marta Mazurek) is the randier of the two. She has quite the mischievous look in her eye, and she has her eye on the cute, shaggy-haired Leif Garrett type, Mietek (Jakub Gierszal), who plays bass in the house band. Silver so aches to partake in pure intimacy that she seeks out a bizarre bottom-half body transfer with another woman, which would make her whole.

Golden (Michalina Olszanska) is more wholesome (more of a gill-next-door type), with a Neve Campbell gleam in her eye. Her hunger for men is more of the literal type. Neither gal is shy. They frequently lounge around topless or completely naked, albeit with their genitals erased. The club owner and others don't bother to be discreet about ogling them. Some of them do pay a price, including one guy who gets a thumb bitten off.

Oddly, it is actually an old-fashioned romantic story being told here by Smoczynska. What lengths will we go for love? Or, in Golden's case, what will we sacrifice to achieve our dreams.

But "The Lure" is anything but ordinary. When the girls first appear onstage, they temporarily sprout their fins and are frolicking coquettishly in a giant replica of a champagne glass. As they shadow the lead singer with their backing vocals, they shimmy and smile like old pros. (The original title, "Corki Dancingu," translates to "The Daughter of a Dance.")

The music is pure cheese. The horror touches recall "Dark Shadows." The color palette is seductive. Mazurek and Olszanska are a dynamic duo. Smoczynska has a keen eye for detail and for period kitsch. This comes off like a screwball comedy, but it demands, improbably, to be taken seriously.

GRADE: B

* - Holy Crap is an occasional series about unique films, cutting a wide swath from brilliant to awful. Check out previous entries here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

BONUS TRACK
An early scene introduces the house band doing their version of the Donna Summer hit, "I Feel Love." Here's the original:

Here's a link to a sample of the gals in their debut at the club. The look on Golden's face (she's on the right) is priceless.