Mermaid 2026

Off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, a motoryacht owner spends his night celebrating his recent divorce when a noise lures him to his tarp-covered liferaft at the bow. When he finds a monstrous creature under the tarp, he reflexively shoots it, but then another creature appears and kills him.

Doug Nelson, Johnny Pemberton, a divorced Lauderdale resident struggling with a drug addiction and a lack of social grace with women, is fired from his job at a strip club. His drug supplier Ron Bocca, Robert Patrick, and his son, Gator Bocca, poison his pet fish after Doug fails to pay up for the latest delivery. At his lowest, Doug rides out to sea and prepares to commit suicide when he discovers a wounded mermaid floating in the water. He takes her to his home, shelters her in his bathtub and treats her injuries. Despite her feral nature, he grows to like her, calling her Destiny, Avery Potemri, and begins “dating” her, even taking her out in disguise and a wheelchair, which unsettles his few remaining social contacts.

After taking Destiny to his daughter’s birthday party, which ends disastrously when Destiny spews black slime all over the place, another mercreature invades Doug’s house and attacks him, but he drives it away. The next night, while Doug is in town, Ron and Gator discover Destiny in Doug’s house, kidnap her and take her to Doug’s former workplace to auction her off to their wealthy clientele. When Doug discovers this, he determinedly follows them and invades the club, but Gator tranquilizes him. With his consciousness fading, Doug electro-shocks Gator and drops him into Destiny’s water tank, where she kills Gator.

When Doug wakes up again, he finds that Ron has managed to sell Destiny despite the deadly incident. Ron takes Doug on his motoryacht into the open water, where he prepares to kill him, but having consumed heroin beforehand, he is unable to fight back properly when Doug recovers, is thrown overboard and drowns. Commandeering Ron’s boat, Doug invades the yacht of James Morris, the millionaire who purchased Destiny, and finds him eating pieces of her flesh while she is still alive. Morris dares Doug to shoot him, but instead the second mer-creature, summoned by Destiny’s cries of agony, boards the ship and mauls Morris to death. Afterwards, Doug frees Destiny, and with his newly discovered dignity, he throws his drug supplies overboard and drives off on Ron’s motoryacht.