First in an ongoing series of remakes of "classic" Samuel Arkoff B-movies starts promisingly enough with showman Sewell stealing a mermaid from its "owner" and bringing aboard an American-bound ship. There's a whole back story here of murderous intrigue, to explain how the mermaid was initially caught, and it's sadly underplayed. It could well have been more interesting than the plot they actually used, which has his girlfriend (Gugino) becoming psychically linked to the mermaid, which has shape-shifting and mind-control powers. These, however, are similarly discarded, in favour of a final rampage through the ship, nipping off crewmen's heads, and a "twist" ending that might as well be wearing a neon sign. Rya Kihlstedt's mermaid has a nice, appropriately otherworldly quality to her, doing well despite having to do most of her acting underwater, and with her dialogue all in Mermaidese, while the final monster shows the benefits of having Stan Winston as a producer. There's a Lovecraftian air to it, an unfulfilled promise, and I can't help wondering where Jeffrey Combs is when we really need him...
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