“The Little Mermaid” is just one of the many horror movies based on fairy tales — specifically, ones made famous by Disney — that have been making waves. “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” gives the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood a slasher movie treatment, and the amount of Winnie the Pooh Characters in the “Blood and Honey 2” trailer beggars belief. Horror fans also have gems like “Bambi: The Reckoning,” “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare,” and “Mickey’s Mouse Trap,” a horror flick that dropped its trailer right after “Steamboat Willie” hit public domain.
Public domain, of course, is the key to many of these creations. While “The Little Mermaid” is very much a public domain fairy tale, making films like this can be tricky — for instance, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” had to tiptoe around Disney copyrights despite the original novel entering public domain during production. It remains to be seen how “The Little Mermaid” has managed this task, and how charming the end result is. Still, the movie certainly seems like a unique take on the classic story.