Iwan Rheon plays a gangster in The Little Mermaid's horror spin-off

When we see movies or TV shows, we mostly don’t look for reality, rather a projected picture of how life could or should be. Shows like Game of Thrones have been playing hide&seek with this all along. They give you a fantasy world, a world where you can escape from your day-to-day routine. But simultaneously making you realize that life is inexplicably fickle and many can do things that many might not have dreamt of.

Characters like Joffrey,Ramsay got down to doing what they felt like. And it wasn’t pretty. This tells us that if we really did what came in our minds, most of us could be a potential Joffrey, Ramsay. Iwan Rheon, who played the omni-despised Ramsay Bolton, was hated during his run on the show due to the character’s sheer insensitivity. But later praised by one and all for his dark, mean portrayal.

Iwan has starred in a new horror film, The Mermaid’s Song. He has got another grim, dark character to play in this production by Wild Eye Releasing– which is popular for making and producing indie films that are low on budget but high on concept with catch-worthy titles.

The film has premiered on digital and is a dark homage to Hans Christian Andersen‘s fairytale The Little Mermaid. We remember Ariel from Disney’s animated classic, The Little Mermaid, which was also an adaptation of Andersen’s original.

Ariel is a young mermaid princess who falls in love with Eric (a human) and is fascinated by life above the sea. The sea witch Ursula turns her into a human and makes a deal that if she can get the ‘kiss of true love‘ within three days, she would remain human. But failure would turn her into a mermaid again and a subject to Ursula. The obstacles and the struggles begin.

The original tale is a bit darker and not so fancy. Here, the mermaid is faced with the prospect of death if she fails to get the kiss. The mermaid is additionally enchanted to be a human because mermaids don’t have souls. And the chance to be a human is a chance to have an eternal soul.

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The Mermaid’s Song takes a more dangerous route. It’s set during the depression of the 1930s. Charlotte is struggling to keep her family business breathing. Enter gangster Randall, played by Iwan Rheon, he proposed to pay off the family debt at the cost of some illicit changes to the business. But The bargain made was that the daughter of a true love would replace the mermaid when the time was right.

So, young Charlotte becomes a mermaid like her mother, who can control humans with just her voice. Thus, the conflict begins among all those who contend for the mermaid’s magical powers.

A live-action adaptation of the Disney and Andersen fairytale is also in the pipeline. Zendaya, the American actor and singer has been reported to play the role of Ariel. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who became well known for his Broadway show Hamilton, and Alan Menken, who won two academy awards for The Little Mermaid (1989), will write the music. Rob Marshall (Pirates of Caribbean- On Stranger Tides, Chicago) is believed to hold the directorial chops.

What do you think of Iwan’s new role in the seafaring world? Talk to us in the comments.