Mermaid Chronicles Part 1: She Creature (2002)

It's 1905 Ireland. Angus Shaw (Rufus Sewell) and his wife Lily (Carla Gugino) run a traveling sideshow. Lily plays the part of the mermaid. Mr. Woolrich invites them back to his mansion to show them a real mermaid he keeps in a tank. Angus returns later with his men to steal the mermaid and Woolrich has a heart attack. The group heads for America smuggling their stolen mermaid. During the ocean voyage, the mermaid uses her mind powers while Lily tries to hide a secret past.Some here have described this as an old style creature feature B-movie. It does have an old style which means that it's a slow start and the intensity of the horror is set lower. There are blood and guts but they are never mistaken for real. The production is undeniably TV movie level. There are surprisingly a few bigger actors involved. The fact is that horror has moved on as a genre since the old days. This feels slow.

If you meet some bloke with a mermaid in his basement, and he tells you that it's a murderous thing which killed his wife, then it might just be a good idea to believe him and not steal it to take it to America to feature as the main attraction in your freak sideshow. Because, you see, the mermaid might not have watched the Disney feature. No, it might have watched Nosferatu instead, and got the idea that it ought to be killing the crew of the ship one by one during the voyage.This movie is a blending of Creature From The Black Lagoon, Nosferatu, Splash, Species, and Alien. But it's quite a good one. It summons up the Gothic feel of the 1960s Corman horrors, particularly with the initial unconvincing process shot of the house next to the sea - this shot both summons up the Corman films and also makes you think that the film is likely to be technically much worse than it is. But the nostalgic Corman-like atmosphere is offset by a distinctly modern-day take in terms of partial nudity, an element of raunchiness and occasional bad language.The mermaid is an effective and original creature (and Stan Winston's work has always been wonderful - oh how he is missed!) and Carla Gugino gives a performance which, frankly, is considerably classier than a cheap horror deserves. Others have commented on her English accent: I endorse this.This is a decent and atmospheric old-school horror, delivered with some modern-day sensibilities.

First of all the tail is all wrong. The stories I heard the tail looks nothing like that. Plus, I never heard of Sirens diving into the sea and becoming Mermids. That's just idiotic. Next, what the hell is a Lair? Other then something bad guy uses in hide in. I liked the topless angel, that was the only thing they got right. But I am not convinced that Mermaids (if they exist) are out to kill Sailors, that's the Siren game not mermaids. If you want to see a better movie about mermaids that get the tail right and don't make them into killer monsters, then check out MERMAIDS, and SPLASH. I give SHE-CREATURE...4 STARS for creature effects alone.

Early 19th century - Angus a carnival owner gets a visit from a grizzled old sea captain who believes that their mermaid is real and is there to warn them of the dangers of this creature. This is when the old man shows Angus and his girlfriend Lillian the mermaid he keeps bolted in a large fish tank. Now Angus wants this never-seen-before attraction and he steals it with the plan of heading to America on a sailing ship for fame and fortune. But the crew aboard the ship meet the deadly side of this beautiful creature and Lillian gets real close and personal with it.This might be a diamond in the rough compared with the rest of the cable TV Creature Features' presentations. I agree that the mythology idea surrounding the feature is an extremely original one and it's very well produced, but I thought the film did not entirely complement it altogether. That goes for the shapeless direction and disjointed script that lacked personality. But with these faults in mind - I still found the film to be hypnotically enchanting, striking attention to the dense material and the atmosphere breaths the old fashion creepiness of monster flicks back in the heydays. Visually it's rather appealing with its darkly slick surface gloss bursting at the seams. Maybe at times it got a bit too artsy and either pointless for its own good - like those edited scenes of the mermaid attacking it's victims and the constant flashes of the mermaid in the tank. I actually thought the death scenes were poorly handled and definitely lacked imagination with the majority of the lethal cut-away deaths being replayed in POV frame shots that turn bloody red. When it comes to the action / violence it doesn't really break out until the final third - where the pace and excitement levels really picks up and we get swept up in some well-placed shocks and neat looking creature designs provided by make-up guru Stan Winston. The well-accomplished special effects are truly detailed and the sensual beauty of the mermaid design (who's mysteriously played by the adorable Rya Kihlstedt) is simply hard to take your eyes off. The atmosphere created builds upon it's confined setting with the majority of the film-taking place on a sailing ship. But the film is still decorated with a surrealistic, dreamlike build up because of the mythical set-up that truly makes you pay notice. The performances are stable and precise. Carla Gugino is irresistibly winsome and Rufus Sewell gives a sincere performance. Aubrey Morris as Mr. Woolrich is enthusiastically, resourceful in a rather small role. While, the mobile score doesn't have that much of a huge impact on proceedings -- the sweeping photography is rather polished and brings another fine dimension to the presentation. This watery tale is one of the sea's many wonders."Mermaid Chronicles Part 1: She Creature" is no more than a glossy and at times an interesting slow-burner of a monster feature.