While 1928’s Steamboat Willie is the clear inspiration for Screamboat, Steven LaMorte’s movie also feels in the spirit of another vintage Walt Disney short: The Mad Doctor. That 1933 cartoon, which shows signs of parody, saw Mickey Mouse endure a series of booby traps and come close to death, all while trying to rescue the beloved Pluto the Dog from a sadistic scientist. Of course, this all turned out to be all part of Mickey’s vivid nightmare. It just goes to show that even before this relatively recent subgenre of public-domain horror came into being, Disney and its creator were fully capable of grotesque and disturbing imagery. Here in Screamboat, LaMorte is, in a way, acting on those impulses.
Although Screamboat is based on a ‘toon that isn’t categorized as horror, it doesn’t lack in weird and somewhat unsettling imagery. Who can forget Mickey playing a mama pig’s nipples accordion style, or swinging a cat by its tail? In general, Mickey was rather aggressive with all the animals there. Nevertheless, that comedic rudeness is intact in LaMorte’s twisted adaptation, only now with the dial cranked up to eleven. It’s cartoonish violence but with actual blood, entrails and death to look upon. It’s enough to make a Disney purist rage and a Disney objector snicker.
Like all of these public-domain movies, Screamboat doesn’t shoot for the moon; it runs with the slasher format because that’s the quickest and easiest way to debase the source material, not to mention draw an audience. The attraction is always that transformation of beloved icons into killing machines. By now, though, the ire over these movies has eased up a bit, due to their general inability to meet expectations — be it low or high ones — and because of the increasing desensitization to the formula. Even Screamboat’s antagonist is following in the footsteps of Winnie-the-Pooh’s dreadful counterpart in the Blood and Honey series; the Willie here (played by the Terrifier franchise’s David Howard Thornton) was pure and kind before mankind’s neglect left him corrupted and homicidal.
In its favor, though, Screamboat eagerly aims to please and gives its target audience exactly what they wanted. It’s what if Jason Takes Manhattan actually delivered on its setup and kept the carnage to the ideal location of a boat at sea, rather than retreat and leave for shore. And after booking a genuine and non-digital ferry — one owned by Colin Jost and Pete Davidson, by the way — this movie gives its feral star plenty of room to go ape on a sizable crowd of paper-thin yet highly characterized victims. The kills don’t always live up to the most imaginative of the collection, however, LaMorte gets points for enthusiasm and design. If only the rest of the movie had the same sense of precision.
It goes without saying that Screamboat is a very low-budget production; that fact is evident in just about every part of the movie. The gory slaughter understandably gets top priority, and some might find Willie’s bizarre getup to be cheap but charming. Even still, money can’t quite fix the problem that is prevalent with this whole horror niche. Screamboat, much like its ilk, acts on an opportunity first and fills in the gaps later. It’s almost as if they make it all up as they go along. And many times over, reaching the finish line is a drag. David Howard Thornton’s gusto aside, this movie wears itself out long before the third act. Surely a good twenty or so minutes could have also been cut out for an almost equal yet more streamlined experience.
It would be a mistake to overthink Screamboat or overlook its appeal as subversive slapstick, however, like so many comedy bits out there, this movie loses its novelty sooner than later.
Screamboat releases in theaters on April 2, 2025.
