The Film (3/5)

Mermaid Lake of the Dead (known as Rusalka: Ozero myortvykh in its native homeland) is a contemporary Russian fantasy ghost horror yarn about an evil mermaid who desires love from swimmer Roma Kitaev (Efim Petrunin), fiancé of Marina (Viktoriya Agalakova). Roma crosses paths with a mermaid (Lisa Grigorieva) on the shore of a lake in a forest. He then becomes ill, worsening by the moment, as he slowly turns into one of the dead. Her goal is to take Roma to her Kingdom of Death down below the water once she has taken full control of him and says that he loves her. She is constantly asking Roma if she loves him as part of the possession. We learn that the mermaid is a young woman who had drowned a few centuries ago and rises from the depths to lure men away. As Roma illness nearly reaches to the point of no return, it’s up to Marina to save him. She discovers, according to the mythology of Mermaids that she has a week to remain human in the deadly fight against the mermaids and her monstrous minions to save Roma or she will become a Mermaid herself.

Mermaid Lake of the Dead certainly sounds good when you read about it, or see a trailer, but ultimately when dig into the core of the apple, outside of the usual jump scares, and CGI effects the film is just average, nothing special basically, however it’s certainly worth a look, obviously to horror film lovers. The effects were cool, the pacing of the film was fast and intense most of the way, but there were several parts of the film that just weren’t feasible. In Roma and Marina’s home, with endless draining problems under the sink, why didn’t one of them just call a plumber to fix it? A lot of the dream sequences, along with those fast choppy edits, also made the film hard to follow at times. The mystery of the comb that Roma finds lead to nothing, and the way to eliminate the mermaid was something that would have been better if this movie was from the fifties. Svyatoslav Podgayevskiy’s direction was adequate with a sincere effort, but he didn’t deliver on making his film rise above other current horror movies. The acting from the young cast was fine for what it was; Sofia Shidlovskaya handed in the best performance as Lisa Grigorieva - The Mermaid, who was pretty creepy. 

Audio/Video (5/5)

Scream Factory’s Mermaid Lake of the Dead received a domestic Blu-ray release. Being that the Mermaid Lake of the Dead is a new movie, one would expect the image to look superior to older films both in SD and HD and which it easily does. Colors are just dynamic and rich with deep textures. The indoor and outdoor scenery are exceptionally sharp and crisp with great details throughout. Scenes that take place in and under the water look incredibly clear. Nighttime scenes also look clear and highly detailed with proper shadowing. If only the movie was as good as the image quality. Skin tones look accurate, good enough to spot facial blemishes, if one has the desire to do so.

There are four audio options for this package, which are either English dubbed or in its original Russian language. English and Russian DTS-HD master audio 2.0 and 5.1 are the four options. Each audio option sounds perfectly fine with action sequences, music and those scary jump scenes coming in the most aggressive. The dialog comes in flawlessly, sounding perfectly clear without drop-offs or hissing. Optional English subtitles and English SDH subtitles are offered for this release. The way to select the audio and/or subtitles can only be done on the disc menu itself as you cannot switch during playback. In fact on my player, I wasn’t able to select ‘disc menu’ while playing the film. You have to make your audio decisions before you watch the film.

Extras (.25/5)

The lone extra for this release is an English dubbed theatrical trailer. And that’s it.

Overall (3/5)

Mermaid Lake of Dracula is more or less a contemporary B horror movie, and depending on your taste, you might dig it. What you will dig is just how robust the picture quality is.