Screamboat Review

Screamboat is, for amended and worse, the epitome of "Dumb Fun." It's leagues supra the contention successful the widening oversea of public-domain Steamboat Willie fearfulness parodies – though considering the moldy food of The Mouse Trap and I Heart Willie, that’s not truly saying much. Director and co-writer Steven LaMorte and David Howard Thornton (Art the Clown himself!) somewhat redeem themselves aft their erstwhile collaboration, the abysmal Grinch slasher The Mean One – oregon possibly their Mickey Mouse games are conscionable benefiting from a comparatively bigger budget. Either way, Screamboat is simply a triumph by comparison. Just don't spell into it expecting thing much than a chintzy bonanza of brutality bogged down by disfigured integer backdrops and lousy performances – astatine best, this is simply a midnight movie to laughter done with friends.

Thornton stars arsenic LaMorte's "Steamboat Willie," looking little similar his animated inspiration and much similar the midpoint of an Animorphs screen illustration. (You know, wherever the CG translation is successful the awkward limbo betwixt kid and beast?) The humanoid rat is simply a familial experimentation gone wrong, tiny capable to acceptable wrong the headpiece of a costumed Times Square busker. His stalking crushed is simply a Staten Island Ferry, though LaMorte isn’t engaging propellers and drifting astir the Hudson River: The New York City skyline glimpsed successful Screamboat is simply a digitally rendered postcard adjacent the astir talented souvenir-shop salesman could ne'er sell. His prey are passengers and unit members who can’t halt alluding to the past of the Walt Disney Company, a fewer of whom are astatine slightest disposed of successful originative fashion.

Though Willie’s green-screened mouse-man proportions alteration from country to country – and are sometimes represented by a raggedy puppet – the slasher unit of Screamboat’s applicable effects shine. In its nastiest nautical demises, Willie skewers victims connected harpoons, decapitates a skipper with a wire, and severs a antheral subordinate without mercy. LaMorte's ode to ’80s schlock cinema is unsmooth astir each edge, but gorehounds should beryllium pleased arsenic Willie gnaws astatine soma oregon impales patrons with forklifts. Thornton's emotive giddiness is the icing connected top, with Willie hop-skipping and tap-dancing from bloody corpse to bloody corpse.

The mini-Thornton earns laughs, but arsenic successful The Mean One, the histrion is trading the malevolent menace of his Terrifier performances for much of a “man successful a Halloween” costume vibe. Allison Pittel, meanwhile, fits the measure arsenic Screamboat's last girl: Selena, an creator bartender who becomes the pome of Willie's eye. But the performances elsewhere are much patchwork. Everyone other – including erstwhile MTV Teen Wolf Tyler Posey, appearing alongside his member Jesse – is conscionable playing a clump of goofy caricatures. (Not Goofy caricatures – he’s nether copyright until 2027 astatine the earliest.) Sometimes, that tin beryllium comical – similar erstwhile boozed-up influencers comparison their crosseyed, tongues-out "Ahegao" faces moments earlier dying astatine Willie’s manus – but it tin besides beryllium uninspired. None of these characters has overmuch to say; they're conscionable parroting New Yawk colloquialisms and trying to interruption the grounds for astir Disney references successful a azygous parody movie.

The (potentially lethal) drinking crippled writes itself: Take a sip whenever you perceive a opus lyric, quote, oregon movie rubric from the Mouse House’s backmost catalog. The aforementioned squad of ditzy, hammered online celebrities are each successful princess cosplay, portion Thornton does his champion off-brand Mickey laughs. Imagine a Roger Corman accumulation written by a Disney Adult: It’s overkill, but it’s besides Screamboat’s eye-rollingly humorous charm.

But does it excuse jokes that onshore with an echoey thud and an wide prime ceiling that’s truthful debased you'll person to duck? Screamboat's bequest volition beryllium its outrageous slayings astatine the hands of a fuzzy, shin-high killer, but for each its juicy applicable termination effects, the visuals are markedly downgraded by changeless greenscreen usage. LaMorte's attack values amusement implicit each else, but that makes for a piecemeal slasher that wanders aimlessly done a slippery metallic maze of pipes and staircases until Willie's adjacent attack. The film's ocular storytelling is sloppy, but Screamboat itself is sloppy, and ne'er tries to person you otherwise. It's shoddily crafted, feels unfinished, and is excessively silly adjacent for the unserious code it establishes. If dumb amusive is each you desire, past Screamboat mightiness beryllium your summons to B-Movie paradise. If not, you’ll consciousness far, acold distant from the happiest spot connected Earth.