SHE CREATURE

”I have a bad feeling about this,” says sideshow hustler Lillie (Gugino), as she and her fellow Irish carny (Sewell) smuggle a real live mermaid aboard a ship to America. Something’s gonna go horribly wrong, right? Right?! Mustily draped in Victorian gothic mood, the movie lingers too long on a murky psychic connection between Lillie and the mermaid before the creature belatedly morphs into something Alien-like (designed by Oscar-winning monster master Stan Winston) and begins a bloody rampage that takes place largely off screen. We’re left wanting to see more, even though we’ve seen it all before.