Pirates 4, On Stranger Tides Review: Mermaid Bondage

Very few films cater to the mermaid bondage enthusiast. In fact, when you start looking for it, there really isn’t that much mermaid porn, let alone mermaid bondage porn, in existence. Given Rule 34 one can, of course, find some mermaid porn, but when I dug around trying to find mermaid bondage all I could find was this [NSFW], and it’s pretty damn tame.

Apparently, the writers of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides felt the lack of mermaid bondage is a great slight on humanity. So they created what is, at best, the world’s first softcore mermaid bondage flick and, at worst, a really shitty Pirates movie.

As we all know, any pornographic film needs to have some semblance of a story. In PoTCoST we definitely get the semblance of a story. Johnny Depp, dressed as a pirate, is lured by Penélope Cruz, also dressed as a pirate, onto a ship captained by Ian McShane who is dressed, as one might expect, as a pirate. They have to go find the Fountain of Youth because [who cares]. In order to utilize the fountain, they need a mermaid’s tear because [reason not given]. This sets us on the course for what the film is truly about: capturing and binding mermaids in a variety of ways.

#1: Capture a Mermaid in a net.

This is the most intuitive brand of mermaid bondage. As mermaids live in the ocean, and nets are use to capture entities that dwell within the ocean, the idea of trapping a half-woman-half-fish in a filthy fishing net, only to watch her struggle against its increasingly tightening bounds, both makes sense and raises a chubby in all of us. But PoTCoST goes just a bit further, with even sexier results.

As a poorly choreographed fight / battle / awkward between our pirates and the vampire mermaids (they’re fucking vampire mermaids, by the way) draws to a close we hear a frantic, pathetic flopping offscreen. The camera slowly pans to the left, showing the ripples set off by the feeble twitches of a delicate, supple tail pinned by a rock. We pan further up the dainty, befished trunk of the helpless creature to the bare midrift, the exposed nippleless breasts, and finally the pallor face which frames eyes widened in abject terror and shame. She struggles in vain, cowering against a cold, unfeeling rock as a net falls and men descend upon her.

Fucking hot, am I right?

#2: Imprison a Mermaid in a glass coffin.

Once the mermaid is caught she is imprisoned in a glass water-filled coffin. We are told that our fishy coed must be transported to the Fountain because mermaid tears, apparently, spoil. This is the point at which I realize what the hell is actually going on.

I can grant mermaids in a pirate movie; their inclusion makes sense. Hell, I can even go along with catching a mermaid in a net, because how the fuck else are you supposed to get the damn mermaid’s tear? But when we have to force the naked half-fish chick into a portable aquarium and carry her around with us? That’s just fucking gratuitous.

It gets even more retarded, though. Alright, so we’ve trapped the naked chick in the portable nudie booth and we’re carrying her through the forest, right? Well, someone trips, the nudie booth falls, and it breaks. So the mermaid starts flopping around on the ground. You know what the fuck happens then? She grows legs in place of her tail. Two things.

First, now we have a naked, terrified, naked, wet, naked 20-something girl lying prone, naked, on the ground. Second? WHY THE FUCK DID THEY HAVE TO PUT HER IN THE GOD DAMNED PORTABLE NUDIE BOOTH IF SHE COULD GROW LEGS THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME? I’m sitting there thinking, “Well, alright, if the tears go bad then they’d have to transport her, and she’s a mermaid, so the portable peep room makes sense.” Then the damn thing breaks and she grows legs? So what the fuck was the point of the glass sex pen in the first fucking place?

The only reason to put a mermaid in a see-through fuckin’ crate is because she has to be in water. The fact that she doesn’t have to be in water since she can grow legs suggests to me that there was no fucking reason to have the jizzquarium in the first place, other than to arouse someone’s damned fetish.

#3: Tie a Mermaid to a rock.

Then we get to the money shot. Near the fountain we find a marsh, or tidal estuary, or whatever the word is for a big fucking rock with holes full of water: Plot device. Ok, so we reach a big plot device. The actors dressed as pirates notice many merskeletons tied to rocks, half submerged in water. Guess what, kiddies. Time to fucking tie the naked chick to a rock and make her cry!

They plop Astrid Berges-Frisbey into a hole, so her tail grows back, and tie her to a rock, so she can be tormented, and proceed to obtain a tear. First we torment her by pointing to the skeletons of her long dried out sisters. Because it’s good to start by mocking the dead. Then we threaten her with physical violence, cause that’s a message kids need to hear. Finally we move onto other strategies that I do not remember because I became acutely aware of the fact that I was sitting in a public theatre surrounded by children watching a mermaid bondage torture snuff film. Also, I may have reached climax at that point. I don’t quite remember. But, hey, mission accomplished, Disney!

You want mermaids in your pirate movie? Fine. You have to catch them in a net? Ok. You need a tear? Sure. You have to put them in a portable sex tank and carry them around? Ok, that’s weird. The tank breaks and she lays sprawled naked, terrified, shivering, naked in the ground? That’s uh… Then we have to tie her to a rock and torture her? Come on, man, seriously?

Oh, best part? After they get the tear? They leave her for dead. They all walk away as the bound topless mermaid lies sobbing, half-submerged, waiting for death.

PG-13, indeed.

I really hope someone got off on all the BDSM Mermaid shit. Because as far as I can tell that’s the only justification for its being in the movie. Though, to be fair, the Mermaid bondage is the only reason I can think of for why the movie exists at all. Well, that and the fact that Johnny Depp probably wants to put another wing onto his house, of course.

I give PoTCoST one dying, sobbing mermaid tied to a rock scene out of a possible ball-gagged, screaming mermaid scaling scene.