Mermaids and Halloween. They don't exactly go together. But we did one on a haunted ship.
I volunteer on the Columbus Santa Maria. Each year we transform the ship into a haunted pirate ship for Halloween. The event is kid-friendly (as much as it can be with very small children). The monsters are not too scary and there is no gross-out factor or chainsaws.
The background story is that the captain (Captain Boony) has cursed the crew. We have several effects scattered around the ship and we rework parts of it every year.
Last year someone got the idea of being a mermaid. She was planning to just lie on the bunk in the cabin and wave at people.
But, someone else knew how to do a neat effect. By using a pair of mirrors and a round lens (a round fishbowl full of water works perfectly for this) the mermaid was projected into the fishbowl.
We also have some cursed treasure and a seaweed monster who hides in the corner and shuffles out. Usually people don't even notice the monster at first.
It is a nice effect but it requires the mermaid to spend three nights lying on her back with her feet up to show her tail. The woman who did it last year has some health problems and could not do it again this year so we had to get a new mermaid.
This year's girl did a great job.
On the final tour, the mermaid and the seaweed monster shucked off their costumes and joined in. They hadn't seen the rest of the ship. Other effects include an octopus that jumped around inside a crate, a head in a cage, a spider with a human head, and a skeleton that turns into Captain Boony himself.
The Mermaid's reaction to the rest of the ship was, "We were doing Disney compared with everything else."
I wish I had gotten a picture of the effect but it was too dim for my phone's camera.
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