Since the copyright expired on the Steamboat Willie incarnation of Mickey Mouse, filmmakers have started taking the mickey………and putting him in horror films. Since 1st Jan 2024 we’ve had The Mouse Trap ….a bargain bucket slasher that when it came to decent effects not only scraped the bottom of the barrel but managed to puncture it too. Far better is ‘Screamboat’ that takes the 1928 animated black & white short film that first featured the mouse in a film with sound.
But this update sees the mouse turned feral and residing in the depths of the New York Staten Island ferry that is on the verge of being decommissioned as it is a rusting bucket of bolts but is soon to turn into a steamboat of slaughter when a last minute load of passengers come onboard that includes a woman about to give up on her New York dream, a raucous WKD wrecked hen party (and each speaking with that curse of the US teen – the vocal fry), a mother and young son, a belligerent captain, a power crazed 1st mate and an almost endless cast that have the usual horror tropes that have little chance of making it home from Manhattan island. Yes it’s one of those films where you have to guess in what order the cast will be offed and who, if anyone, will make it to the end.
For horror fans the kills, when they begin, are frequent and furious and often extremely bloody at the hands of the murderous mouse who takes a gleefully twisted delight in the gory kills as played by David Howard Thornton. It’s a characterization Thornton has form for having played Art the clown in the astonishingly brutal ‘Terrifier’ films and the mouse does a little dance or a little chuckle and scuttles away to comic effect after despatching carnage. What the film makers have done here though is not have a 6ft mouse but instead have kept the character as a two foot tower of terror either featuring him in a far larger set, shrinking him against the background or using a puppet.
It all adds to the slightly surreal mayhem and there’s a load of knowing nods to the original short film and the House of Mouse and at one point there’s a short cartoon featuring a character that’s Walt Disney himself which must have been a legal minefield for the producers.
With a half decent budget and a high kill rate it’s all hokey fun with a morbidly maniacal mouse at the centre with the film makers having an eye on a sequel (watch the end credits).
related feature ; ‘The Mouse Trap’ review
related feature : Mickey Mouse in ‘The Mouse Trap’ – director Jamie Bailey & star Simon Phillips takes us BTS
instagram: Our invite to the first screening of ‘Screamboat’
Here’s the Screamboat trailer…..
Screamboat is only showing at Vue cinemas on 2nd April 2025
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