I’m just gonna come right out and say this, the live action Little Mermaid trailer looks a thousand times better than Beauty and the Beast

Blah blah blah Emma Watson didn’t wanna wear a corset blah blah blah there’s a gay moment blah blah blah thousands of column inches dedicated to the new Beauty in the Beast film that you’ll probably go see but only because you can’t escape the hype and to be fair the songs are absolute bangers.

But enough of all that! Because the new trailer for the live action Little Mermaid trailer is here, and it looks campy and over the top and awful but also, because of that, great. It’s like if American Horror Story aired on Lifetime so obviously you’ll immediately want to watch it.

There is a train (the train features heavily for some reason), a very over the top evil magician at a circus wearing a frilly cravat. There are some English people looking wide-eyed and pale and earnest and confused in the middle of Mississippi, there’s a creepy Southern voice over explaining there’s magic in Mississippi, there’s an excellently bad CGI shell bra. Except for Shirley MacLaine, none of the actors are instantly recognisable, but all could conceivably have been in approximately seven Nickelodeon dramas and three rom-coms without me noticing. What more could you want?

“He says I have the heart of a mermaid”, says the creepy little girl at the end of the trailer. Someone tearfully (presumably The Little Mermaid) says “you do!”. The evil magician has her soul in a jar. There’s a lot of drama to fit into a two minute two second long trailer, but it looks like drama I want to be a part of.

The IMDB synopsis which explains it all a lot less dramatically says: “A young reporter and his niece discover a beautiful and enchanting creature they believe to be the real mermaid”. IMDB doesn’t list an official release date, so yeah, in the meantime you could tide yourself over by watching the new Beauty and the Beast film, but it won’t be as good and that’s something you need to accept.

@rosielanners