An evil Mermaid falls in love with Marina’s fiancé Roman and aims to keep him away from Marina in her Kingdom of Death under water. The Mermaid is a young woman who drowned a few centuries ago. Marina only has one week to overcome her fear of the dark water, to remain human in the deathly fight with the monsters and not to become one herself.
It seems like Russian filmmaker Svyatoslav Podgaevskiy (partnering with writers Natalya Dubovaya and Ivan Kapitonov) have heard our complaints about the Shape of Water not being frightening enough to be a genre film. The Mermaid: Lake of the Dead (Russian: Rusalka: Ozero myortvykh) makes our extraspecies love interest far more terrifying with grotesque dental details and questionable CG. While the term “mermaid” in Western culture conjures up cutesy shell bras and schools of singing fish, the Russian rusalka is closer to that of a violent siren. Make no mistake by reading the translated title: this film will be gory.
The Mermaid: Lake of the Dead premieres in Russian theaters on July 12.
