KRISTI PETERSEN SCHOONOVER

This is the image that burned into my brain and stayed there for many years; it was the thing that kept me searching for this film. I was so terrified by this I literally couldn’t sleep. “You’ve been had,” says Dr. Paulis. “THIS is a Jennie Haniver.” It turns out—although I didn’t know it then—that a JENNY Haniver is a real thing—it’s a ray or skate carcass that has been manipulated and dried. Sailors in the 16th-century claimed they were mermaids and sold them to tourists; think early version of the Fiji Mermaid.