"The Little Mermaid" Prequel Is The Grittiest Disney Film Ever

Ariel has a mom! (Had. She had a mom.)

Plenty of Disney aficionados have seen The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea

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It's the one where Ariel finally reaps the reward of being a problem child by birthing a rebellious daughter who is exactly like her.

But the third Mermaid movie, the prequel Ariel's Beginning, is less known.

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Probably because it's a little bit...dark.

Everything starts out fine and we get to meet Ariel's mom, the lovely Athena...

(also note the babeworthy King Triton in his heyday)

...right before she gets murdered by pirates in front of her children

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Question: is that the same coast as Prince Eric's lands? If so, then the pirates may be either his subjects or his adversaries, meaning that Eric's parents' failure to control their coastal piracy problem caused Athena's death. Wars have been waged over less.

King Triton then falls into a decade-long depression potentially characterized as Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.

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The condition manifests itself as obsessive phonophobia, aversion to music in all forms.

Under the oppressive thumb of an all-powerful king, rebel movements spring up with sleeper agents living within the castle walls.

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Just to make sure we're all on the same page, this is The Little Mermaid we're talking about here. Funny seagulls. Shaggy dogs. True love. Totalitarian government?

And the King's daughters act against their father by visiting a forbidden speakeasy, an action punishable by sea-death.

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Check out the look of tail-shitting terror on the blonde sister's face. She knows what's at stake here.

There's also the "villain" Marina, a mermadam who displays the ability to —wait for it— change her tail?

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Total revamp of mermaid lore. Can mermaids take their tails off? Is it a surgical procedure? Yikes.

In the end everything works out (after Ariel almost gets killed like her mom), but man — Ariel's Beginning sounds a lot like an undersea nightmare version of Footloose.

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Just a wild ride from start to finish.

Watch this at your own risk.