My quick rating – 3.3/10. Nothing says “timeless horror” like a knock-off Mickey Mouse suit and a squishy sound effects budget. We kick things off in 1997, where our killer, dressed like your childhood nightmare of Disneyland’s mascot, goes on the loose. The practical effects are allegedly on display, but the filmmakers decided to save money on lighting by… not using any. Half the kills take place in shadows darker than my expectations for Mouseboat Massacre. At least the Foley team nailed the “grocery store Jell-O cup” squish effect. So that’s something.
Fast forward 28 years later (get it? 28 Years Later? Coincidence? The producers hope you’ll think not). Instead of the usual vacation-gone-wrong or cabin-in-the-woods setup, this time, a family drags their daughter Mimi (Lauren Leppard) to an intervention. Fresh angle, sure, but also possibly the first horror movie where the monster competes for screen time with a very special episode of Intervention.
Connie (Kathi DeCouto), whom I last saw cashing a check in Popeye’s Revenge, pops up here, reminding us that acting may not be the reason anyone is watching—or surviving—this. Mimi, meanwhile, is addicted to oxycodone, and while she sells the glazed-over look just fine, she trips and falls with all the grace of a sleepwalking mannequin. Speaking of continuity, a black man got decapitated, and the separated head was off a white mannequin LOL.
The mouse’s summoning point? Not a cursed book, not an ancient artifact—nope, it’s a VHS tape, straight out of The Ring’s garage sale. Once unleashed, Sadistic Mickey gets down to business. And by business, I mean cutting off limbs, faces, and in one very creative first, beating someone with their own spine. The brutality is plentiful, and the blood flows generously enough to keep horror fans awake through the otherwise bland storyline.
Unfortunately, blood alone doesn’t float this boat. Writer Harry Boxley serves up a script that’s as generic as pre-sliced white bread. The kills deliver, but the story limps along like Mimi after her fourth fake trip-and-fall. Just when I thought the movie was going to land on a solid, gruesome ending, the filmmakers dragged it on with a nonsensical finale that had me wondering if the VHS tape also cursed the editing department.
I suppose Mouseboat Massacre offers enough gore and absurd mouse mayhem to satisfy the midnight-movie crowd, but if you’re looking for an actual story or scares beyond “squishy noises in the dark,” you may want to steer your boat elsewhere.
