‘Screamboat’ Review: Mickey Mouse Attacks a Handful of ‘Terrifier’ Veterans in a Twisted Disney Ferry Tale

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic There are two completely different kinds of brutality afoot in movies like “Screamboat,” the latest in the low-budget horror movie craze to pervert beloved intellectual property the instant their 95-year copyright protection lapses into the public domain.

First, there’s whatever sadistic fates the filmmakers have in mind for the characters, from being impaled by a forklift to having their faces plunged into the propeller of the Staten Island Ferry.

But the real violence — and the reason audiences presumably pay to see these IP parasites — is what’s done to the characters themselves, as there’s an illicit thrill in desecrating powerful brands, like Disney. “Screamboat” isn’t the first slasher movie to spoof “Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 animated short that introduced a primitive black-and-white version of Mickey Mouse, but it’s a lot more fun than last year’s “The Mouse Trap,” a pathetic cash grab in which some guy in a Mickey mask hacks up his buddies in a Chuck E.

Cheese-style family entertainment center. Here, at least director Steven LaMorte (who skewered the Grinch character in holiday-themed “The Mean One” three years earlier) loosely tries to honor the spirit of Steamboat Willie, while poking fun at his parent company as much as his lawyers will allow.