Plot: thirty-something girl anxiously awaits her date… or is she?
Spain has always been fertile ground for fantastic – and horror cinema. With several decades of history to draw from and the old masters rightly enshrined as the innovators that they were Spain never really stopped producing horror or weird cinema. Over the last twenty years Álex de la Iglesia and Jaume Balagueró have been the prime names associated with Iberian terror and suspense and the country continues to produce horror at a steady pace. Over the past several years Norberto Ramos del Val has been producing low budget horror and terror. Lucero is our first exposure to his work and since then he has directed, among others, Heaven In Hell (2016) and Killing Time (2022). It’s impossible to gauge how important he will become to Spanish fantaterror, but new blood is never bad. Whether he is the de la Iglesia or Balagueró for this generation only time will tell.
In the Lucero barrio (neighborhood) of Madrid 34-year old Eva (Claudia Molina) attends the Sacrament of Penance during the Semana Santa (Holy Week) procession. After returning to her apartment it becomes clear that Eva is mentally unstable and deeply unwell. She is interested in witchcraft and has the literature to prove it. On top of that, she’s probably neurotic, is constantly itchy, and possibly suffers from OCD. Her boyfriend Angel (Edgar Calot) has left her – and she’s understandably saddened and frustrated with the whole situation. Tonight she has a date with Lucas (Jaime Adalid) and she’s fighting against the hours for him to arrive. As the shades of night descend it dawns on Eva that her date might not be coming tonight or at all. This triggers her anxiety even further and as memories of her time with Angel wash over her she sinks deeper into depression and loneliness. As Eva is consumed by paranoia and explores the deepest chasms of her soul a terrifying secret is bound to surface…
The opening montage with all the footage from Madrid and Claudia Molina in high couture sort of gives off the vibes that this might turn into a modern day giallo but once Lucero settles on the apartment as its one and only location any such pretensions or ambitions are, sadly, instantly abandoned. At a brisk 68 minutes it still takes forever for something nothing substantial to happen – and when it does, it happens oh so very, very slowly. For a good 53 minutes Lucero sort of flows glacially (or serenely, whichever you prefer) with no apparent direction or specific destination in mind until it suddenly explodes into a phantasmagoria of Satanic covens and full frontal situational nudity. The only novelty (if it can be called that) that Norberto Ramos del Val introduces is that Lucero has no dialogue whatsoever. None. Not a single line is uttered. It might seem like an odd creative choice at first but on second glance it seems perfectly logical.
And then there’s the title itself, Lucero, that can refer to any number of things. For starters, there’s Venus, the morningstar. Second, it’s also another name for Lucifer, which probably goes a long way explaining the skeletally thin Satanic cult subplot that really begged further exploring as well as the international market title Fallen Angel that this has gotten in some territories. If Lucero accomplishes anything it’s making us wanting to see more of Claudia Molina. Molina wonderfully succeeds in carrying what little story there is all by her lonesome. This being Spanish the bathtub scene (and the fact that Eva doesn’t utter a single syllabel for about 68 minutes) suggests that Ramos del Val probably has seen Female Vampire (1973). The solitary kill scene is effective in its brevity and functional minimal gore. It sort of echoes She Killed In Ecstasy (1971) passively and the coven scene indicates that Ramos del Val has seen his fair share of either Jean Rollin or any early seventies Meditterranean horror of your preference. Sadly, this is also where Lucero wastes most, if not all, of its potential. There’s so much here and so very little is done with it. Hopefully one day Ramos del Val will make the Satanic coven and witchcraft (lesbian or otherwise) movie that’s alluded to here.
If you were feeling charitable perhaps Lucero could be described as a Spanish take on Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) and The Tenant (1976) but truthfully this is closer to Pål Sletaune’s hugely atmospheric and occassionally gripping Next Door (2005). Except that that had actual characters and story – and this not necessarily does. There’s only so much a naked Molina in the third act and a sufficiently ethereal ambient score (that could have come from Simon Boswell or Michael Stearns) can possibly redeem. The problem isn’t so much what Lucero is but what it could have been. Some dialogue would have worked wonders here. As much as the non-verbal route allows the viewer to project whatever they want onto what they see informed by their own experiences, it also makes the entire thing inconsequential on its face. An entire Jean Rollin or Paul Naschy type fantastique could be extracted from the coven and witchcraft scenes. For most of the time Lucero is closer to the oeuvre of Rene Perez than to Paul Naschy. Much more of a moodpiece rather than a character study Lucero is style over substance.
Plot: two mermaids wash ashore in 1980s Poland. One is friendly, one is not.
You have to commend Agnieszka Smoczyńska for attempting something like this on what couldn’t have been too much of a budget. Córki Dancingu (or Daughters Of Dancing, for some reason released on the international market as The Lure) is not only a cautionary tale about the predatory nature of the entertainment industry and a vehicle for Smoczyńska to comment and criticize upon her upbringing as the daughter of a nightclub owner and her own seedy experience therein (in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine she confided, “My mother ran a night-dance club back in the day and I grew up breathing this atmosphere. That is where I had my first shot of vodka, first cigarette, first sexual disappointment and first important feeling for a boy."); at the same time it’s also a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the 1837 fairy tale The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Perhaps one day we’ll get an answer as to whether Smoczyńska was privy to the oeuvres of Jean Rollin or Jesús Franco growing up in hermetic 1980s Poland. Look at it as an Eurocult throwback and dissect it from that standpoint and suddenly The Lure becomes something else entirely. Was this always the design or something sheer serendipity? Who knows. Whatever the case if you’re expecting the family-friendly Disney version of the tale, look elsewhere.
Something like this inevitably wasn’t going to attract a mass audience and The Lure pretty much fell into obscurity after its Polish premiere and being screened at the 2016 Sundance and Fantasia Film Festivals. Truthfully, had anybody expected anything else? The Lure, for everything that it has going for it, is not exactly The Love Witch (2016). Anna Biller’s kaleidoscopic and psychotronic throwback to seventies fashion, exploitation and women’s undergarments had the benefit of looking like a long-lost and restored Tim Burton epic. The Lure has no such luck nor rich production values. It professes to be a window into late 80s Poland but at no point does the time period nor the setting affect or enhance the story being told. This effectively could have been set in present day with no meaningful impact or adverse effect on the story being told. The only thing that sets apart The Lure from its immediately competition is its musical aspect. However, unlike Bollywood entertainment or the mini-trend this was part of the songs in The Lure are mostly low energy, devoid of hooks and, well, depressing. Some of the lyrics are charming in their biting irony and supposed edginess. Kinga Preis’ rendition of Donna Summer’s perennial disco evergreen ‘I Feel Love’ is faithful to the original, the girls’ “help us come ashore” siren song is incredibly sexy in its two-line simplicity and ‘I Came to the City’ exudes mad energy. The remainder of the songs seldom as charged or sexy as these. They have a function where they appear - but that’s very, very faint praise, indeed.
Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszańska will look instantly familiar to the obscure – and weird cinema aficionado. Smoczyńska employs that age-old cult cinema and exploitation chestnut of the light- and dark-haired lead. Just like Gloria Prat and Susana Beltrán in Emilio Vieyra’s late sixties Argentinian kink-horror cycle, Jeanne Goupil and Catherine Wagener in Joël Séria's Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971), Soledad Miranda and Ewa Strömberg in Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (1971), Barbara Bouchet and Rosalba Neri in Amuck (1972), Anulka Dziubinska and Marianne Morris in José Ramón Larraz' Vampyres (1974) or, perhaps more fittingly, the archetypical lead duo in any vintage Jean Rollin fantastique. Think of Marie-Pierre Castel and Mireille Dargent in Requiem For A Vampire (1970), Marie-Georges Pascal and Patricia Cartier in The Grapes of Death (1978) or Marina Pierro and Françoise Blanchard in The Living Dead Girl (1982).
And there’s no way that Smoczyńska not chose these two actresses specifically. Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszańska. Mazurek sort of resembles Jaroslava Schallerová from Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) and Olszańska scorches with an aura of wanton desire and carnality not unlike the late Soledad Miranda. To their credit, Mazurek and Olszańska are naked early and often – and you have to admire these women for taking on a demanding (and nudity-heavy) role like this in this modern (and supposedly more enlightened) age and running with it. The only other name that looks vaguely familiar is Andrzej Konopka. Whether he’s in any way related to minor Eurocult star Magda Konopka - she of Satanik (1968), When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970), Our Lady of Lust (1972) and Sex, Demons and Death (1975) - we weren’t able to uncover.
Warsaw, Poland. The late 1980s. The Revolutions of 1989 heralded the collapse of Communism and the country has held its first partially free and democratic elections. A wind of change permeates the streets and districts as permissive Western influence is allowed to replace the old oppressive Soviet social values. At the dawn of this new age revue and cabaret clubs herald the socialist-style planned economy transforming into a market economy designed on the American capitalist model. On the banks of the Vistula river in Wisła rock band Figs n' Dates is rehearsing. The tones of the music lure nubile mermaid sisters Srebrna (or Silver) (Marta Mazurek) and Zlota (or Golden) (Michalina Olszańska) to the surface who immediately start chanting their alluring siren song. Almost momentarily doe-eyed bass guitarist Mietek (Jakub Gierszal) catches Silver’s eye. After assuring the musicians that they mean them no harm they are taken ashore. Golden insists that Silver shouldn’t involve herself with human business. She believes that her romantic interest in Mietek will spell doom for their collective dream to swim to America. Golden warns Silver not to fall in love but she’s smitten with Mietek.
Once on dry land the sisters grow legs and are taken in by Krysia (Kinga Preis). As a singer she introduces the girls to Janek (Zygmunt Malanowicz), the owner of the Adria cabaret club where her group Figs n' Dates functions as the in-house entertainment. Janek immediately recognizes the potential and possibilities of two half-naked teen girls with enchanting voices. He bombards Silver and Golden to back-up singers and has them doubling as a theatrical stripping act. While Silver refrains from consuming human hearts Golden has no such inhibitions. Silver longs nothing but to have a human lower body so she can consummate her love for Mietek. The attraction’s obviously mutual but to him she’s nothing but a fish. In no time Silver and Golden come to call themselves Córki Dancingu with Figs n' Dates as their backing band and become the main draw of the club. This to no end frustrates burlesque dancer Miss Muffet (Magdalena Cielecka).
Meanwhile the mutilated bodies left behind by Golden attract the attention of police officer Mo (Katarzyna Herman). As weeks turn into months soon the sisters attend a midnight show by hardcore punk band Triton. Their frontman Dedal (Marcin Kowalczyk), himself a denizen of the deep, had observed Golden on one of her nocturnal feeding sessions and knows what’s up. He informs Silver that she realistically has but two options of becoming fully human: undergo reconstructive surgery but lose her angelic voice or win his love and marry her prince but never be able to return to the sea again. On the first day of him marrying someone else Silver will be reduced to foam. Against all odds Silver holds out hope that Mietek will return to her even when he shows interest in another girl (Kaya Kolodziejczyk). Does love truly conquer all – or is the marine sister’s fate bound to Silver’s choice and thus doomed to end in tragedy, regardless?
The biggest stumbling block here (at least for us) is the insistence that this is an 80s period piece. For some reason we’re led to believe that the story is set in the late 1980s yet none of the fashion, hairstyles, and music really convey that this is supposed to be set in the year that’s it in. The club is littered with bright yellow “Saturday night fever” posters which scream 1979 rather than 1989. Around the 40-minute mark there’s a pounding goth-industrial club banger (complete with corresponding hairstyles and make-up) that strangely feels like 1999 rather than 1989. Instead of recalling Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure and The Sisters of Mercy it’s far closer to the industrial rock of Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie. If the songs were more like ‘I Feel Love’ and ‘I Came to the City’ than perhaps the constant fucking up of the time period could be overlooked. Further adding to the confusion later there’s a news report placing it at late as 1997. On top of all that Jakub Gierszal has the most obvious (and trendy) millennial anime sadboi haircut. There’s something to admire about Robert Bolesto even attempting something as ambitious as fusing a fairytale with a depressing coming of age tale that also happens to double as a cautionary tale about the entertainment/nightlife industry. To say that an exercise like that is a very delicate balancing act would be an understatement. While Bolesto succeeds in adapting the Christian Andersen fairytale and the cautionary tale about the entertainment/nightlife industry sort of works, the coming of age angle is rather underdeveloped. The only real cool thing is that Bolesto has the mermaid sisters communicate non-verbally via biosonar (just like dolphins). Then there’s the fact that Golden has no arc to speak of and nothing is made of her random acts of murder around the club. In true exploitation tradition The Lure doesn’t end so much as it just arbitrarily stops.
Perhaps it would have been better for Agnieszka Smoczyńska to spread the story across two features. A coming of age story set in late 1980s Poland would be interesting enough by itself, but even more so when it uses the mermaids’ mythical carnivorous cravings as a metaphor for their collective sexual awakening. The second, and more obvious, would be the entertainment industry cautionary tale that this very much wants to be, but never really becomes or is. As a throwback to classic Eurocult, specifically the French fantastique and Spanish fantaterror The Lure is among the best. For the average moviegoer this might just be a tad too weird for comfort. Regardless of everything that The Lure has going for it Ginger Snaps (2000) or Teeth (2007) this is not. The musical aspect is executed well enough but most of these songs miss the necessary hooks, big choruses or just the vibrant spirit that this sometimes requires. Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszańska acquit themselves well enough during the musical breaks but they tend to be better dancers than singers. Anna and the Apocalypse (2017) did the entire musical horror thing far better on average. The Lure was never going to attract a mass audience but it’s never for a lack of trying.
