SCREAMBOAT. Mouse the Ripper [REVIEW]

Let’s start with a quick trip into the past. Three years ago, the world was shocked by the announcement of the slasher film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, in which director Rhys Frake-Waterfield took advantage of the fact that A.A. Milne’s characters had just entered the public domain. From there, things snowballed – the film’s box office success, a sequel made with five times the budget, and plans for an entire cinematic universe built around horror reinterpretations of other classic children’s stories. Although Screamboat – a slasher adaptation of perhaps the most iconic Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928) – isn’t part of Frake-Waterfield’s budding franchise, Steven LaMorte’s film is clearly trying to cash in on the gory success of Winnie the Pooh. Case in point: the movie’s production was announced just one day after the Disney original entered the public domain.

However, Screamboat also owes a great deal to another recent horror phenomenon – the Terrifier series. It’s not just that David Howard Thornton, who plays the bloodthirsty Mouse here, is the same actor who plays Art the Clown (he had already worked with LaMorte in his previous slasher parody of the Grinch, The Mean One, from 2022). What’s borrowed most from Damien Leone’s series is the specific approach to portraying violence – full of cheap (but creative) gore, drenched in pitch-black humor. The sadistic Willie also resembles another incarnation of Art the Clown – not just because of deliberate creative inspiration or Thornton’s performance, but also thanks to fidelity to the animated original.

To be fair to the creators – unlike Frake-Waterfield, they at least make SOME attempt to engage with the source material. Of course, the plot is purely a pretext (New York ferry passengers vs. a psychotic mouse killer hidden on board), but we all know that’s not why we’re here. The fun lies in watching a beloved childhood character butcher helpless victims – and LaMorte wastes no time delivering on that promise. The bloody massacre scenes are constantly interspersed with references to the cartoon original (as well as other Disney nods, some of which are painfully forced), and the director even tosses in a token meta-commentary on the endless recycling of pop culture – which he himself is obviously happy to participate in.

So yes, LaMorte’s intentions are transparent – the problem lies in the execution. Unfortunately, the film’s concept alone isn’t enough – it needs at least a basic sense of dramatic tension. Instead, Screamboat quickly becomes a mechanical checklist of slasher set pieces. A whole swarm of characters is introduced in the opening scenes only to disappear into the background for half the film; most of the kills (with a few exceptions) are unimaginatively staged; and the key subplot involving Selena (Allison Pittel), who struggles to adapt to the harsh realities of New York life, feels like not even the screenwriters cared about it. The result is rather depressing – somehow, a slasher based on Mickey Mouse ends up being just plain boring. It doesn’t help that the whole production reeks of cheapness – the kind Damien Leone might have turned into a strength. There are a few flashes of directorial flair (notably some creative lighting in the final scenes), and David Howard Thornton still exudes that same psychopathic charm he brought to Terrifier, but it’s not enough to save the film.

Screamboat is, of course, a better movie than both Winnie the Pooh films – but let’s be honest, that’s not saying much. In the end, Steven LaMorte’s creation is just another slapdash, half-baked product trying to ride the current trend. And all signs point to this wave of slasher adaptations of children’s classics just getting started – but if the quality stays at this level, we probably shouldn’t expect a bright future for the subgenre.

Written by Jedrzej Paczkowski