For a movie adaptation of such a great horror game that Siren is, Forbidden Siren (2006) surprisingly does not understand how its source material works. What makes the original game so haunting isn't scary zombies, bloody eyes or the sound of siren itself. For me, it always was the feeling of loneliness you can never escape, even in death. So many people gathered in one place, isolated from the world and left face to face with their tragedies (I mean, look at the Siren cast! By the time the game ends, there's only one untraumatized person in this godforsaken village, and even she doesn't get to leave). It's about how other people shape you, and how you shape them. How you cannot live without attachments, even if they inevitably hurt you. How sometimes, humans are the worst monsters (notice how no one from Siren main cast dies by the hands of shibito, at least explicitly?). And about how everything you do has consequences, and your actions may affect other people even after hundreds of years. The movie tries to do something like that by creating the main storyline where Yuki has to look after her little brother while things go south in this island (the kind of storyline that every Siren game has), and it does work, but only gives characterization to the main character herself. Everyone else (the brother, their father, that doctor who is kind of a love interest to Yuki) is just kind of... there. But having a huge cast of characters where everybody has their quirks and whims is one the defining trait of Siren series, so the movie not adapting it feels like a big loss. Instead of fleshing out the characters, the movie tries to use cheap, but memorable spooky elements from the games: loud siren alarm, sightjack and shibitos. It doesn't really work. Speaking of the horror component, it's very incoherent. Siren is the last franchise to have an «it was just a dream» twist, but I could come to terms with it, if only the lore movie tries to dump on me instead wasn't that confusing and hard to follow. The movie can't use the characters or the plot from the Siren sequel it's promoting not to spoil it, but fails to create its own interesting story. It's not like I hate that film; were it just some random Japanese horror movie, I wouldn't care or maybe even would try to find something good about it. But since it's associated with my favorite game and twists it completely, I can't just take its flaws and accept it.
For a movie adaptation of such a great horror game that Siren is, Forbidden Siren (2006) surprisingly does not understand how its source material works. What makes the original game so haunting isn't scary zombies, bloody eyes or the sound of siren itself. For me, it always was the feeling of loneliness you can never escape, even in death. So many people gathered in one place, isolated from the world and left face to face with their tragedies (I mean, look at the Siren cast! By the time the game ends, there's only one untraumatized person in this godforsaken village, and even she doesn't get to leave). It's about how other people shape you, and how you shape them. How you cannot live without attachments, even if they inevitably hurt you. How sometimes, humans are the worst monsters (notice how no one from Siren main cast dies by the hands of shibito, at least explicitly?). And about how everything you do has consequences, and your actions may affect other people even after hundreds of years. The movie tries to do something like that by creating the main storyline where Yuki has to look after her little brother while things go south in this island (the kind of storyline that every Siren game has), and it does work, but only gives characterization to the main character herself. Everyone else (the brother, their father, that doctor who is kind of a love interest to Yuki) is just kind of... there. But having a huge cast of characters where everybody has their quirks and whims is one the defining trait of Siren series, so the movie not adapting it feels like a big loss. Instead of fleshing out the characters, the movie tries to use cheap, but memorable spooky elements from the games: loud siren alarm, sightjack and shibitos. It doesn't really work. Speaking of the horror component, it's very incoherent. Siren is the last franchise to have an «it was just a dream» twist, but I could come to terms with it, if only the lore movie tries to dump on me instead wasn't that confusing and hard to follow. The movie can't use the characters or the plot from the Siren sequel it's promoting not to spoil it, but fails to create its own interesting story. It's not like I hate that film; were it just some random Japanese horror movie, I wouldn't care or maybe even would try to find something good about it. But since it's associated with my favorite game and twists it completely, I can't just take its flaws and accept it.
