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Screamboat (Blu-ray)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Signature Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Rick Curzon (29th May 2025). |
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The Film
 See David Howard Thornton transform from the Art the Clown to the tiny terror of New York in this horror that’ll make you shiver the next time you hear a squeak in the night. A group of New Yorkers are on a late-night ferry ride that turns deadly when a mischievous mouse begins a rampage, targeting unsuspecting passengers. The unlikely crew must band together to thwart the murderous menace before their relaxing commute turns into a nightmare.
Video
One of several horror films that have recently been made that take a beloved children's property that has gone out of copyright and some wags decided to make into a cheap gore-fest horror film. See also The Banana Splits, Popeye and Winnie the Pooh. This time we have Mickey Mouse due to the Disney animated short Steamboat Willie (1928) falling out of copyright. The script is hopeless, trying to play it all incredibly broad and over the top ... everyone says "fuck" and "holy shit" a lot. It's a New York set film (on the Staton Island Ferry) over the course of one night as an incredibly lame looking (miniaturised) mutant killer mouse (played by David Howard Thornton as a variation on his Art the Clown role) goes around periodically slaughtering people and obviously taking extreme sadistic pleasure in the killing. With little mouse sounds and laughs. The characters are so broadly drawn and played ... and by turns obnoxious or dull. Technically it's a well made digital production competently directed and lensed with decent atmospherics but it's just a vehicle for gore, jump scares and incredibly weak writing as characters swear, argue and shout a lot. The occasional moment of brio notwithstanding, skip it. As for the disc, it's a BD25 with a bitrate hovering about in the 30s. Being set at night much of the film is pretty dark, but the contrast ratio is good. Black levels are strong with a reasonable amount of shadow detail. Being digital, there's little or no grain; encoding is strong. The image isn't anywhere near as flat and low contrast as many a blockbuster I've seen recently. Colours are strong, flesh tones naturalistic. As good an HD rendering of the source shy of a BD50 with higher bitrate or a 4K release, but this is a budget film getting a budget release ('A-'). 1080p24 / AVC MPEG-4 / BD25 / 2.39:1 / 102:25
Audio
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit) English LPCM 2.0 Stereo (48kHz, 16-bit) Subtitles: English HoH Both tracks being modern productions they use the sound stage very well generally, perhaps not as good as the latest Marvel, CD or Bond flick, but the surrounds are filled with ambiance and the soundstage is active most during action, murder sequences and jumps scares. Dialogue is always clear, mores the pity given the script and the score plays across the stage nicely as and when required. The hard of hearing subtitles on the sections I checked were accurate and seemed to catch all the nuance of the dialogue. A very strong soundtrack almost, but not quite, good enough for demo ('A').
Extras
"Screamboat" 2025 promo (0:56) Fairly useless trailer where the actors all wax lyrical about David Howard Thornton, the actor playing in the mouse suit as Steamboat Willie in this film and is mainly known as Art the Clown in the Terrifier series. Startup Trailers: - Damien Lone's Terrifier 3 (2:20) - Azrael: Angel of Death (1:27) - Boy Kills World (2:29) Promos for other Signature Entertainment releases presented in 1080p24 2.39:1 (Terrifier 3, Boy Kills World), 1.85:1 (Azrael) with DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (48kHz, 16-bit)
Packaging
Standard thin blue Keepcase.
Overall
A mostly lame, largely unfunny attempt to create a gory horror comic film based on the out-of-copyright Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie (1928) by way of Gremlins (1984). Technical competence is the only thing really of note and the cast do what they've been asked to do by the weak, low ambition script. The disc however is very good overall with very a fine image and even better sound, but it could obviously be improved by a dual layered presentation with a higher bitrate or even better yet a 4K UHD BD release with HDR. Extras are worthless and token at best. However, the price is cheap and if you're so inclined the disc is recommended ('B-').
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