Screamboat review
Willie takes Staten Island.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Screamboat
Directed by Steven LaMorte
Written by Matthew Garcia-Dunn and Steven LaMorte
Starring David Howard Thornton, Jesse Kove, Jesse Posey, Charles Edwin Powell, Amy Schumacher and Jarlath Conroy
Screamboat Review
In some ways…Screamboat feels like a conclusion. It is the fifth and final Steamboat Willie inspired public domain slasher that we were promised (threatened with) when the copyright came up. It also arrives on the heels of the first three Popeye related slasher movies…about a day after Shiver Me Timbers set a new, lower, bar for the already shaky concept of turning childhood heroes into slasher killers. The truth is that no matter how Screamboat came out…these movies aren’t set to stop any time soon. There’s a whole Poohniverse out there, after all. But Screamboat is the end of a long run of movies that attempted to carry out the Winnie-the-Pooh treatment with whatever landed in the public domain next. Each of which has been one kind of creative failure or another.
These are bad slasher movies. No one is pretending that they are anything other than that. Every Popeye/Mickie/Winnie-the-Pooh cash-in aims for that bad slasher movie fun that titles from the 80s you can’t remember the name of provided. Cheap and full of forgettable nonsense. There is a place in horror for these movies. Unfortunately, this current wave has managed to convince me that that place is the 1980s.
There was some reason for cautious concern heading into Screamboat. It stars David Howard Thornton (Scare Value Award winning Best Killer Art the Clown) as the mischievous mouse. The production team behind it has given us the Terrifier movies and Stream…movies known for their superior practical gore effects. And…believe it or not…it’s set on a boat. After four Steamboat Willie movies and three Popeye movies…I almost want to cry as I type that out. We got one. We finally, honestly, got one.
The boat in question is the runt of the Staten Island Ferry fleet. We learn a surprising amount about the history of the Staten Island Ferry in Screamboat. I have no idea how much of it is accurate…what matters is that a strange mouse man is loose and ready to kill anyone who gets in the way of his mission. That’s another thing Screamboat has going for it. More than any Mickey Mouse slasher so far…it attempts to tie a narrative reason to Steamboat Willie’s actions. It’s silly, of course. Five movies in…it’s also appreciated.
The boat is full of New York City caricatures. I mean that in a good way. If you’re going to make an enjoyably bad slasher…you need to have easily recognizable character types to dispatch. Screamboat is, give the setting, unsurprisingly a New York City movie. Thick accents, mis-appropriated bravado…you attack one of use you attack all of us…everything you expect. It doesn’t even feel like Screamboat is satirizing these people…they’re just presented for the slaughter. Special shoutout to Terrifier 2/3 alum Kailey Hyman’s vapid birthday girl Cindi. Her commitment to the drunken, clueless bit steals every scene. In fact, and this sounds strange when reviewing a low-budget Mickey Mouse public domain slasher…my one real complaint is that Cindi deserved a more memorable fate.
Willie’s size can be a bit hard to pin down in Screamboat. At times he appears just three apples high…other times he looks to be a few feet tall. It really comes down to what perspective is needed to pull off whatever shot they’re going for. Thornton’s role isn’t as flashy here as his most famous one…but he gives Willie so much more personality than any other production has managed to it’s almost crazy. He’s a rare talent…no matter what the material is.
Other than that…you basically know what Screamboat is. A bad slasher movie that is in on the joke…wants to have fun with you…and, honestly, mostly succeeds at doing so. The gore isn’t Terrifier 3 level…or even Stream level for that matter…but it’s certainly better than its peers. Thornton’s Steamboat Willie has personality and purpose. His potential victims are colorful…though mostly forgettable and easily dispatched. Just the way you want them to be.
The funny thing about Screamboat is despite going into it hoping to find a reason that we keep getting this steady stream of low-budget public domain slashers…what I really found was a soft remake of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. A low stakes slasher on the high seas. A version that knows how silly the concept is and winks at you instead of pretending it’s something more than it is. That’s a bad Friday the 13th movie. But it’s a good public domain slasher.
Scare Value
I’ve wandered a bit too far away from the central question of this review…so allow me to double back. Does Screamboat finally find a purpose to the barrage of public domain slasher movies we’ve been subjected to? No. That would be impossible. It makes a fine case for itself, however. It’s a bad slasher movie…don’t mistake what I’m saying. But it’s the kind of bad slasher movie that should have a place in modern horror. People having fun with the concept…laughing with you at it the whole time.
2.5/5
Screamboat Link
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