10 Creepy And Unique Mermaid Designs In Movies And TV
1. Ancient Celtic Mermaid - She Creature
Titled “Mermaid Chronicles Part I”, this mermaid design is one of the most ambitious and stylish ones you will ever see in another movie. In Ireland in 1905 two carnies, Angus Shaw and his wife Lily, heard that a real mermaid has been captured. Lily, who impersonates a mermaid herself every now and then, is smitten by the idea of a real mermaid. In a dark and stormy night they travel to the old gothy mansion where the mermaid is supposed to be hidden away by an old admiral. When admiral Woolrich then reveals to them an actual mermaid whom he captured back in his admiral days, and explains how she killed his wife. Naturally Angus and Lily are astonished. Sensing Angus’s desire to use her as a freak show attraction, Woolrich tries to talk him out of it, warning him not to underestimate these creatures unknown.
Unbeknownst to Lily, Angus and two of his colleagues break into Woolrich’s gloomy mansion and smuggle the mermaid aboard their ship ... The rest of this fabulous nautic horror flick is set up like a good old intimate play, and takes place almost entirely in one location. Now let’s get to this absolutely hypnotic mermaid design, which is probably closer to most of the old tales of terror: Actress Rya Kiehlstedt’s sea-creature — or she-creature in this case — has been fabricated after one of the most ancient depictions of the mermaid: the Melusine, the twin- tailed siren from the 15th century. Throughout its runtime, “She-Creature” does not shy
away from huge efforts and outstanding prosthetics to bring this truly mesmerising mermaid design to life. A thick fishtail that parts at its knees, each of them ending up in a majestic fin. The scales are of a greenish brown, perfect to camouflage in the murky waters.
Are tail is in fact so strong that the nameless mermaid can move herself on dry land, which is depicted in a particularly scary scene where she faces off Carla Gugino’s Lily under the gloomy deck. This is also the only scene our mermaid leaves her prison, a depressing fish tank, but sadly we never see her swim freely.
With its greenish tint this amazing fishtail already foreshadows another face of the mermaid: the grotesque creature slumbering underneath her pretty face, a twist that is deeply anchored in Celtic mythology, where the nixie’s beautiful face lures lovesick men underneath the surface. Once the victim’s face is close enough to the waters, the nixie’s features twist until they resemble a monstrous amphibian beast, similar to the creature from the black lagoon. Thanks to the movies clever setting in the late victorian era in Ireland, the film plays effortlessly with these usually underused Celtic myths and the foreignness of the mermaid herself. In the end she could have come from anywhere really, considering it’ being linked to the Celtic Sea in the south and Inner Seas of the West, there are plenty of options of where her origins could be.
Unlike most maidens on this list, She-Creature is entirely mute, having no use for vocal cords down in the deep sea. Yet, once she turns into the hideous Merrow-esque creature, uncanny shrieks and growls echoed from her gaping mouth. Her goggly eyes are very similar to the ones of Charlotte: dark mirrors, simplified and reptilian to withstand pressure, salt water and see through darkness. A nice touch is that, once the mer-monster is set free, the reflections of her victims are mirrored in her goggly pitch black eyes. This way it never undermines the true unsentimental nature of these creatures. In the end it’s not personal and we all have to eat, right? Just like Swiss mermaid Mia and others on this list She-Creature has cannibalistic tendencies, and her appetite reaches far beyond the mere all you can eat buffet of there fellow underwater creatures. This diet seems borderline bipolar, considering that a mermaid is half fish, half human after all.
Sadly, what started out as an extravagant Dark Universe Monster Franchise never made it to the second base. How much would we have loved to see more of our favourite creatures come to life on the screen. But it looks like that centaur splatter movie of my dreams is just as unlikely to happen as a funky chapter two for She-Creature.
And that’s it, mermaid maniacs. Isn’t it eerie and enchanting that we still discover new species in the endless depths of our wonderful oceans, and that less than 60 years ago they found 40 new species of monkeys in the jungles and rainforests around the world. Mother Earth is so much more exciting than we will ever acknowledge, and much more mysterious than we think...