Namaka
A musician on a tropical vacation with his family meets an ancient mythical creature who falls in love with him and demands his love in return, or else he faces deadly consequences.
Excerpt
I’m not against a movie being made to facilitate a vacation, but the final story should justify the trip. Frank Merle’s Namaka (2026) is a thriller with a lot of potential but sometimes loses track of its own plot.
Namaka’s Siren Song
I’m not against a movie being made to facilitate a vacation, but the final story should justify the trip. Frank Merle’s Namaka (2026) is a thriller with a lot of potential but sometimes loses track of its own plot. Set on one of the picturesque Hawaiian islands, Namaka serves as a cautionary tale though the underlying message is a bit unclear.
We open with our resident conspiracy theorist podcast host Guy Torina (Jamie Kennedy) imploring us to take care with the mystic nature of the island. He takes calls from locals and listens to their supernatural encounters while also giving them advice with mortal realm implications. He’s a bit of a ham, but he doesn’t seem toxic or overly problematic and seems to be really passionate about the lore of the islands. He’s recounting a tale of a missing man on the island when we switch to Alex Cook (Jason Markoff) and his wife Erica (Erin Killean). They’re going on an extended family vacation traveling with over 5 other members. Erica is excited to reconnect with family while Alex is looking forward to making music. He even purchases a new ukulele and while playing in a secluded spot in the jungle, a young woman makes his acquaintance.
Alex is instantly enamoured and this may be where some of the issues started. The story of Namaka is a part of Polynesian mythology. Namaka is often seen alongside her sister Pele who lives in the volcano and controls lava and earth. Namaka is primarily the goddess of the seas and she and Pele are constantly at odds because of a stolen paramour.
Merle has reworked some of the plot and basically reduced Namaka (Ash Tsai) to a man-eating siren who – despite being immortal – doesn’t seem to have control over her whims. If the production would have just cast someone as Pele, you could have a really interesting story wherein Alex is caught in a tug of war. But as it stands, Namaka is a tale of nonconsent and ignored red flags.
This film is a redpiller’s dream! A manic pixie dream girl who used her wiles to seduce an innocent artist with a heart of gold. Once ensnared in her trap, if the artist tries to escape, she threatens to destroy his entire world. It’s her fault for the decisions he makes and he’s powerless to stop her. At one point Namaka tells Alex that the “decisions” he’s made are his own, but not much in the film shows that he had actual autonomy. The end of the film does present the audience with a “the moral of the story is…” moment, but it’s really of no consequence nor is it based on anything that happens in the film. It feels like Namaka tried to straddle the decency line with their main character, and in their vagueness just made the whole thing confusing.
Fumbled Hat Trick
You can’t leave sexual coercion as something for the audience to decide. And without this decision being made, it shrouds every scene in which Alex returns to Namaka with a heavy gray cloud.
Sadly, it just all feels very lazy. Namaka is a collection of tropes with a heist-like score underneath. We have Walter Notch (David Howard Thornton), a “crazy” unhoused man spouting words of wisdom presented as gibberish and ultimately mean little to the plot. There are two bumbling disbelieving detectives who wave off claims of a dead body. The long-suffering wife who gives Alex so many chances to explain his predicament. And the mysterious woman who can’t help but be drawn to Alex because of his music – which, I’m happy to suspend disbelief, but the music was not great and it was clear Markoff can’t play the ukulele. Also, when I mentioned earlier about this being shot to justify a vacation, I wasn’t kidding. There are several scenes where we take helicopter tours and go to the beach and mountain climbing! I’m not sure we ever learn the names or hear from any of the other family, but there are full scenes with them on vacation.
These scenes are even more notable because they are largely shot using a hat camera. And I think that’s my biggest problem with this film – it’s a hat camera. It’s supposed to be a fun indie horror that keeps the audience guessing, but it’s wildly obvious and lacks any finesse or nuance. Everyone who sees Alex’s hat camera knows immediately what it is and most are – at best – annoyed. What should have been a fun way to introduce “found footage” style filming again fell flat. Namaka is full of so many creative and interesting parts (David Howard Thornton is Art the Clown in the Terrifier (2016) films and delivered a great cameo, that amounted to little), but it just doesn’t work.
There were some bright spots. Jamie Kennedy as podcaster Guy Torino was a pleasure from start to finish. Whether he was cutting to commercials or striking out with women at the bar, he gave an involved performance that he disappeared into really well. Markoff is good natured and has good timing which helped a lot of the comedic beats land. He and Tsai shared chemistry and made good use of their time on screen. Tsai has several credits to her name and put a lot into Namaka, even as one-dimensional as she was.
Tl;dr: Steeping this film in island mythology could have been really interesting. Namaka is a flawed indie film that should have stuck to its roots.
Score 4/10
Trailer:
