On a peaceful evening in a remote villa in Serbia, a group of friends, Sophia and Emma, enjoy a vacation by a beautiful outdoor swimming pool. The space seems peaceful and gentle, until they start to hear strange sounds coming from the lake. Sophia takes out her phone and plays a video of the “Serbian Dancing Lady” – a terrifying legend that claims that if you watch her dancing without permission, and don’t… apologize afterwards, you will be in trouble. Emma warns but Sophia doesn’t believe her, and then the curse begins.
The atmosphere in the film silently changes: the shimmering lights of the lake are now a bit dim, the flickering sound of the background music gradually increases like a pressing fire. Suspicion and fear begin to creep into each gaze. Deep at night, the quiet water is no longer a place to relax but a gateway to a haunted realm when the mysterious character – the Serbian Dancing Lady emerges from the darkness, appears in the water, her hideous eyes make the viewer’s heart stop beating.
The plot is short and concise but enough to make the audience shiver. Serbian Dancing Lady is not just a traditional devil, but the embodiment of obsession and mystery that people cannot touch when poking at things they should not. Writer and director Alex Magaña, in collaboration with Jed Brian, has built a psychological “well”: the deeper people dig, the deeper they fall into the pit of fear.
However, the film is not without its drawbacks: some reviews say that the acting is still awkward, the horror mainly comes from the jump scare element and the somewhat predictable emerging out of pool effect, the ending is fake, not really new compared to other parts of the Serbian Dancing Lady series.
But besides that, there are still positive perspectives that this part does a good job in depicting the process of the character Ana – or Sophia – gradually being haunted to the point of mental breakdown, when the pool is no longer a place of entertainment but becomes a symbol of obsession and loss of control.
The total duration is only about 4 minutes, but Serbian Dancing Lady – The Pool brings a memorable experience: the sound is delicately designed, the image of the lake is hazy, the darkness is cyclical, the monstrous face appears and disappears. Although short, the film makes the audience wonder: if you turn your back, are you really safe? If you dare to watch, are you prepared to… apologize?
