Hooked On Horror Review - Screamboat

Fresh off the success of Terrifier 3, David Howard Thornton lends his killer skills to indie creature feature/slasher Screamboat. A modern-day slasher re-telling of the iconic Steamboat Willie story, and one that delivered to be honest. I didn’t go into this with high expectations, especially after the horrendously bad, almost unwatchable Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. But, I finished this film

pleasantly surprised.

“A seemingly routine late-night ferry ride in New York City descends into chaos when an ordinary mouse undergoes a terrifying transformation. This mutated creature unleashes a reign of terror upon the unsuspecting passengers, forcing them to fight for their survival. As the body count rises,the remaining survivors must band together to find a way to escape the monstrous threat.”

Film starts out following two dock workers who accidentally unleash Steamboat Willie, a mutated mouse who’s been locked away for many years after his beloved eccentric owner Walt fell overboard. The film wastes no time setting the tone with a pretty fun opening kill, which then leads into the last ferry journey of the night on the Staten Island Ferry in New York. The film introduces our leading lady (or Final Girl) Selena (played by Allison Pittel) who’s rushing to make the boat in order to get away from an insufferable party of ‘whoo-girls’.

You can see why she was running when we get introduced to them shortly after- they were enough to make me nearly switch the film off I won’t lie. I suppose that’s just props to the cast for winding me up so much. Anyways, that kind of sets the scene for a boat ride from hell. I was honestly not prepared for what followed. It was bat-shit crazy, ludicrous, truly ridiculous, gratuitous and utterly insane…and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Do you remember all those over the top, cheesy, ridiculous B-horror movies and monster movies fullof gratuitous nudity, violence and gore we all watched and loved throughout the 80s? This just proudly follows in its footsteps (minus the copious gratuitous nudity- par a brief moment). I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much, as it doesn’t try to be anything more. It fully embraces the utter stupidity and ridiculousness of the entire premise of the film and just has fun with it; going as far as to make the film cartoonish at times. There's some pretty great comedic moments throughout the film. The story is straightforward and doesn’t really veer far off course, and it is full of Disney references and Easter Eggs that just added to the entertainment factor of the film. They even take a dig at the ‘Disney Adults’ which was pretty funny to watch. I can imagine the cast and crew had a wail of a time making this one.

The cast all gave decent performances, despite a few ropey moments of dialogue in the script. The whoo-girls, as I said above, did a great job. The longer the film went on, and they were alive, the more it annoyed me. Thankfully, Steamboat Willie does what he does best- I mean if he didn’t I’m 90% sure natural selection would’ve played it’s part with these characters eventually. I enjoyed Jesse Posey, Amy Schumacher & Allison Pittel’s performances and what they brought to each character- had good on-screen chemistry as well.

Stand-out performance does go to David Howard Thornton though- he was fantastic as Steamboat Willie, even under all that make up. He brought his trademark twisted, macabre sense of humour he’s made Art the Clown famous for, as well as other quirks and moments that made this a memorable performance. Loved the whistling throughout the film as well. As I said above, this film fully embraced the sheer craziness and cartoonish-ness and it is echoed by Thornton in his performance.

The design of Steamboat Willie was cool- a twisted, more sinister version of Mickey Mouse with a thirst for blood and a creative flare for how to kill people. Added props to the team behind this for opting to do this practically with David Howard Thornton in a full body suit as it looked great. Huge part of my enjoyment for this though came from the death scenes and kills. They were well done with some pretty outstanding special effects work whenever they could. Always a bonus when a filmmaker opts for the real thing!

They were creative, they were fun and some were unbelievably gory. My favourite kill of the film goes to Captain Clark (played by Brian Scolaro); no spoilers but not only was the kill fantastic, but it was followed up by the re-creation of a pretty iconic scene from the original 1928 Walt Disney cartoon. Most f*cked up goes to that poor Officer Chris (played by Peter Romano), that was…it was difficult to watch. Morale of the story is don’t opt for oral sex when there’s a maniacal mouse running round the ship dismembering people (pun intended).

Hooked On Horror Review - Screamboat

I’ll admit I was initially wondering how long this film was going to be, there were a lot of people on that ferry for Willie to kill. But, to be fair a good chunk of them went in a pretty fun mass kill scene. Just to finish this section of my review off- the whoo-girls deaths were incredibly satisfying to watch. I even went back to re-watch some of them, I won’t lie.

All in all, this film is utterly ridiculous but it fully embraces it. It makes it a fun watch and something I’d definitely recommend to most horror films. This film was made solely for entertainment purposes, and it truly delivers on that front. Besides not being a massive fan of the ending, I only had one main gripe with the film. The size of Steamboat Willie never really gets defined. Like some scenes he’s small enough to fit under a hat, then other’s he’s the size of like a small toddler- there just wasn’t any consistency with it which did wind me up, and I did find slightly distracting at times. But, a minor hiccup in a fun and well done indie horror. This is worth watching for multiple reasons- great kills scenes/deaths (with practical SFX), David Howard Thornton with another great performance and the Disney references, digs, quips & Easter Eggs.

Screamboat is out now in Vue Cinemas across UK & Ireland. Get tickets HERE.