I Heart Willie review
I Heart Willie doesn’t know how to implement its best idea.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
I Heart Willie
Directed by Alejandro G. Alegre
Written by David Vaughn
Starring Maya Luna, Sergio Rogalto, Daniela Porras, Micho Camacho, David Vaughn, Cristina Zulueta and Craig Morgan
I Heart Willie Review
Once more into the breech, dear friends. Look, public domain horror movies aren’t going away. Every year a new iconic character from someone’s childhood becomes available to be someone else’s low budget slasher villain. Does it make any sense for Mickey Mouse to want to slaughter the innocent in not one, not two, but (at least) five independent slasher movies? No. It makes more sense than Popeye doing so in at least three though. Mickey Mouse is still a popular character, after all. I sometimes wonder what Disney thinks of all this. The movies that have starred their Steamboat Willie character have been so disposable thus far that I’d imagine they chuckle at any fears they had in the lead up to his public domain date.
The truth is that no one has made a good public domain slasher movie yet. Occasionally one will border on decent or watchable…but they’ve almost universally had nothing to say. Not about the character they are gleefully coopting. Not about the state of low budget slasher movies. Nothing. It’s simply been a stream of low to no budget films hoping that someone else’s intellectual property will cash in their lottery ticket. It’s all perfectly legal, of course. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it.
I Heart Willie is the latest attempt to draw attention to a project by utilizing the world’s most famous mouse. The fact that it will only be the most recent for about a month shows how dire this situation has become. I’ve come to a crossroads on reviewing this new subgenre of slasher movies. I love a bad slasher movie as much as the next person…but something about this brand of them feels seedy in a bad way. There isn’t always a ton of crat in the low budget slasher business…but there is almost always a passion for making them that shines through. The Mickey Mouse slashers in particular have felt…wrong. As if they were made solely for the hope of financial gain or, and I’m chuckling as I type this, to open doors for future projects for the people that make them.
Damien Leone didn’t go from low budget slasher to box office winner with his Terrifier franchise because he took a beloved character and twisted it. There was a true passion for the craft on display. I’m sure he wanted to earn recognition and bags of money when he set out to tell the story of Art the Clown. I’m equally sure that isn’t why he made Terrifier to begin with. Whatever your thoughts on that original film…you can feel that it was made by someone who loved the genre. Someone with the talent to pull off his modest vision. And, perhaps as importantly to the ongoing success of the franchise, someone who found the perfect actor for the face of it.
Maybe the people behind I Heart Willie had the same noble intentions. It’s possible I’m unable to connect to it because it’s already the third Mickey Mouse slasher movie I’ve seen. To be honest with you…I’m not even sure if it’s the worst one. It is, however, the most disappointing one. I say that because I Heart Willie has an interesting idea. Not a revolutionary one, mind you…but an interesting one. An idea that would have something to say about the traditional role of the final girl in slasher movies. Unfortunately, it doesn’t know how to implement it effectively.
Shot in just ten days there are aspects of I Heart Willie to be admired. A do-it-yourself homemade feel that results in a gritty aesthetic befitting its story. It uses practical effects…which we always approve of. The Mickey Mouse of this story involves a half mouse/half man who likes to cut people’s skin off. I never figured out which half was meant to be a mouse. We see the character walking around without his mouse eared mask on…half mouse is at best an exaggeration.
The story in I Heart Willie is about a YouTube channel that investigates unexplained phenomena. They’ve chosen to explore the supposedly abandoned home of this mouse boy. Reported to have died in a fire decades earlier…mysterious disappearances in the area have given rise to the legend of Willie. Nora (Maya Luna) serves as our lead character…and the focus of that interesting idea I Heart Willie toys with.
Nora is a frustratingly written character. She oscillates between the character who senses danger and doesn’t want to be there and the brave character pushing forward the investigation. You could get whiplash trying to follow her motivations in the first half of the story. Slowly but surely, we learn more about Nora and she becomes a more interesting character. The movie’s title may point you in the right direction. Luna is quite good in the role…which makes her scattershot arc even more frustrating.
Perhaps the best way to sum up I Heart Willie is highlighting a technique that the movie deploys on more than one occasion. Two characters in different places will be doing something…and the movie will crosscut between them repeatedly. They aren’t doing anything interesting, mind you. Nor are they doing anything related to one another. The choice seems to have simply been made to try and put any excitement or suspense into two boring moments. While I understand the impulse…it feels amateurish and unintentionally funny. Like I said…perhaps the best way to sum up I Heart Willie.
Scare Value
I Heart Willie feels rawer and more do-it-yourself than the glossier public domain slasher movies we’ve seen. It uses practical effects and does have one truly strong idea at the center of its story. Unfortunately, it doesn’t know how to fully implement that idea. While it’s impressive to have made something more original than other attempts…and in so little time…I Heart Willie ultimately misses the mark.
1.5/5
