A disturbed young man falls in love with his captive sea monster in 2026's Mermaid. I'm so glad we live in a world where a movie like this can get made. While its tonal experiment doesn't always connect, I really respect it for hitching up its own tightrope and walking it wearing fins.
But, okay, what is love? It seems like moviegoers have been interested in that question this year since Obsession. Mermaid, despite not being nearly as successful, actually has a somewhat similar premise. A young, sexually frustrated young man, possibly an incel, is so desperate to have a relationship with his dream woman, he tries to make it work even when it turns out she may be an inhuman monster. Unlike in Obsession, though, the monstrousness of the title creature is never in doubt. The mermaid is played by the talented Avery Potemri whom imdb doesn't even call an actress but instead a "movement artist who specializes in creature work." In addition to Obsession, I also thought of Chappelle Roan's "Casual" music video in which Roan is the young woman who takes a sexy murderous sea monster home. But the relationship depicted in Roan's video is far more consensual.
Comedian Johnny Pemberton plays the male lead, Doug, a perpetually dazed and confused young man with a percocet habit, living alone in the large Florida home he inherited from his father. We meet him just as he's losing his job taking care of a fish tank at a strip club, where the owner, in the process of firing him, takes a moment to tell him that he's creeped out one of the girls with the poems his been writing for her.
When he gets home, a couple gangsters played by Robert Patrick and Tyler Rice beat him up for failing to pay up the 30 grand he owes them and they kill Doug's beloved tank full of fish. As Doug later explains to the mermaid, whom he names Destiny, when he has her in a drugged stupor in his bathtub, he knows a lot about fish but not a lot about women. This is comically plain from the fact that he's speaking English words to a being who clearly doesn't know much beyond the instinctive need to consume animal flesh with her rows of gruesome, razor sharp teeth. But Doug found her when he was in the midst of a suicide attempt and the prospect of having a mermaid lover is seemingly the only thing that pulls him back from the brink. It's as though the protagonist of a Creature from the Black Lagoon movie has convinced himself he's really in Splash. Variety's review contrasts the film to The Shape of Water.
Fascinatingly, a couple of reviews can't help but infer some level of mutual attraction between Doug and Destiny. There is a slight hint near the end that maybe Destiny deliberately refrains from tearing his face off but as far as I can see the attraction's all in Doug's head.
The film is a mixture of horror and comedy. The film's weakest points are when it thinks it's a comedy with horror elements. It works far better as a horror movie with comedy elements. Potemri's makeup and costume are excellent and you can get a good look at them on her instagram.
Mermaid is available on Amazon Prime.
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