Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in the 1928 animated short “Steamboat Willie.” That early iteration of the iconic Walt Disney character officially entered the public domain on January 1, 2024, just as we knew he would. That’s why we also knew January 1, 2024 would inevitably come with the announcement of a boring, unoriginal Mickey Mouse horror movie. And sure enough, it’s here! And it’s just as boring and unoriginal as we’d expected! Mickey Mouse’s Trap features a slasher in a Mickey mask inexplicably hunting down workers at a family-fun center.
That trailer looks like a parody someone would make of a cliché public domain scary movie. Only it’s somehow far less original. This horror movie doesn’t even attempt to connect to Mickey Mouse’s history and story the way last year’s Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey did. That film actually featured an abandoned and bitter Pooh as the killer. This is just a no-budget slasher flick with a Mickey mask. Yawn. The film’s official logline is just as trite:
It’s Alex’s 21st Birthday, but she’s stuck at the amusement arcade on a late shift so her friends decide to surprise her, but a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse decides to play a game of his own with them which she must survive.
Mickey Mouse’s Trap comes from director Jamie Bailey with a script from Simon Phillips. It does not yet have a release date.
If this, somehow, isn’t enough Mickey-related horror for you, “Steamboat Willie’s” entry into the public domain also brought a horror video game with it. It’s a co-op from Nightmare Forge Games called Infestation 88.
I’m so very tired and the year is just getting started.
The good news is “Steamboat Willie” Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain forever. That’s plenty of time for someone else to do something fun and original with the character.
