Screamboat (2025)

If you have a penchant for violent kills and severed penis gags, plus a working knowledge of Disney films, then SCREAMBOAT, which is getting a UK cinema release from Signature, might just be the film for you.

We're on a Staten Island ferry, one called Mortimer (ah!) which used to be a steamboat (aha!). Deep in the bowels of the engine room one of the workers prises a metal plate off a small compartment and in doing so releases a three foot tall homicidal mouse. 

Meanwhile a bunch of disparate individuals are gathering to make the night crossing. These include a hen party wearing presumably non-actionable approximations of Disney princess outfits with approximate non-actionable names to match (Cindy, Jazzy, Bella, etc), an EMT (co-producer and casting director Amy Schumacher - perhaps someone failed to turn up, although she's fine in the role) and a couple of police officers.

Off they go! With minimal crew and fog rolling in that's going to make the 25 minute crossing last a lot longer, giving our Mickey-inspired friend plenty of opportunities for mayhem and the script plenty of opportunities to make (again presumably) shoehorned in questionable taste non-actionable references to Disney songs. A typical example would be a topless girl asking her boyfriend 'Can you feel the love tonight' before she gets on her knees and before the inevitable severed penis gag that follows.

SCREAMBOAT stars David Howard Thornton as the killer mouse whose backstory is explained through some amusing animation that will tickle you most if you're familiar with early 1930s black and while animated shorts. Thornton is most famous for playing Art the Clown in the TERRIFIER series of films and this seems to have been made to cater to the same kind of audience. At over 100 minutes it's too long and  the pacing lacks the dynamism to make this work as well as it might. It also gives you time to wonder what the behind the scenes story of this one is, and how they managed to get away with so much Disney stuff in a decidedly non-Disney film. Did most of the budget go on lawyers? Was the script written by a disgruntled ex-employee of the Staten Ferry line? If you do go to see it, watch out for a number of sight gags (the posters on the ferry, for example) that suggest SCREAMBOAT is trying its very best to be an entertaining cult film, but the execution could have been a bit better. Let's have a trailer:

SCREAMBOAT is out in Vue Cinemas from Signature Releasing in the UK on 2nd April 2025