210) Mouse Trap (2024) - NEW TO HORROR

"You cannot trap me." 

Director
Jamie Bailey

Cast
Simon Phillips - Mickey Mouse / Tim Collins
Sophie McIntosh - Alex
Madeline Kelman - Jayna

Ben Harris - Ryan
Callum Sywyk - Marcus
Mireille Gagné - Gemma
James Laurin - Paul
Kayleigh Styles - Jackie
Mackenzie Mills - Rebecca
Jesse Nasmith - Danny
Allegra Nocita - Marie
Damir Kovic - Det. Cole
Nick Biskupek - Det. Marsh

With "horrorized" re-imaginings of popular children's properties began popping up within the last five years, such as "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" and "The Mean One" (a horror version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Seuss) it seems clear this is going to be the new trend in the movie genre. It's the most gimmicky of horror subgenres. I think it's a fad that'll die off sooner than later. I highly doubt mainstream audiences want to see their favorited cartoon characters "reimagined" as killers going on blood drenched murder sprees. 

At the time I write this, a horror version of the famed cartoon character Popeye, called, "Popeye the Slayer Man" is set for release in 2025. These older properties falling into public domain account for this new gimmick in the horror genre. The other half of the trend likely stems from unknown directors trying to quickly make some sort of name for themselves, grabbing these properties for themselves and greedily squeezing out all the innocence and whatever money these old properties might still have. Soiling up or simply destroying innocence seems to be the thing to do in modern society. 

When the 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon "Steamboat Willie," considered to be Mickey Mouse's debut, became public domain in January of this year, it took no time for some shlubs out there to follow this horror trend and turn the early version of Mickey into a horror movie psychopath. However, the producers of the recent horror movie "Mouse Trap" seemed so eager to do this that they forgot to write a worthwhile movie and just threw something together haphazardly.

By the way, here's some trivia for those who don't know this. "Steamboat Willie" is actually a satire of a silent movie popular at the time called "Steamboat Bill, Jr." staring silent film comedian, Buster Keaton. The iconic tune whistled by Mickey Mouse in the cartoon is the same as the movie's opening score.
"Mouse Trap" was released in Aug. 2024. However, it's worth mention that there are some old Mickey Mouse comic strips that depict Mickey in a less-than-savory way. The Disney Company would prefer these comic strips be forgotten about. Here, I recommend the 1989 comic book "The Uncensored Mouse" published by Malibu Graphics' Eternity Comics. It's a collection of Mickey Mouse comic strips from the 1930s, most if not all drawn by American cartoonist Floyd Gottfredson, which depict such things as Mickey unsuccessfully attempting suicide, racial stereotypes, and so on. 

Simon Phillips as "Mickey Mouse."

Anyways, "Mouse Trap" is a pointless and unnecessary movie about a group of lame and forgettable teens who are trapped in an arcade. 

A guy in a Mickey Mouse mask, with some sort of supernatural ability to teleport (I'm not exaggerating) goes around killing each of them one by one for unclear, unspecified reasons. 

The movie begins as two of movie history's most commonplace good cop/bad cop police detectives interrogate a gothic girl named Rebecca (Mackenzie Mills) about several murders that took place at the arcade. She tries as hard as she can to be an intimidating, callous bad ass, unaware of how much of a joke she really comes across as. 

The story cuts to the arcade where two young girls, Alex (Sophie McIntosh) and Jayna (Madeline Kelman), as they work their shifts at the arcade. Alex seems to take her job seriously while Jayna is just there to collect the paychecks. 

Their supervisor, Tim Collins (Simon Phillips) who also owns the arcade, tells them they need to work an extra shift that night as someone booked the arcade for the night at the last minute. 

Alex stays on but Jayna ditches work to hang out with some boys, begging Alex to cover for her until she gets back which Alex agrees to.

Meanwhile, Tim sneaks off to watch "Steamboat Willie" because the writers had to force the connection to the public domain cartoon somehow. He watches it in a small theater adorned with some vintage Disney posters and memorabilia including a rubber Mickey mask locked in a curio cabinet. 

Tim begins hearing some ethereal voice in the room with him. It seems to come from this Mickey mask. What it is, or why it's coming from the mask is unknown. He eventually goes into a hypnotic state due to some ethereal presence, and puts the mask on. It's never revealed why this is all happening. 

While Alex is working alone, she catches the masked guy in the back of the arcade chaining the door. She panics and tries to flee when she bumps into her friends who have arrived to throw her a surprise birthday party. She completely forgets about the stranger in the Mickey mask sneaking around the back chaining the door, in order to party. 

As the party begins, and these characters do a lot of nothing but recite their lines, some with hardly any emotion, the Mickey killer starts murdering each teenager with a knife. He doesn't talk. His motives are never revealed. He just stares at his victims, holds his knife out like a show-n'-tell session without a word, and then kills. 

The movie feebly attempts to portray panic and fear. Everyone runs around while the audience waits for each one to die. None of the characters emote. None of them are memorable or express any depth that entices the audience to care what'll happen to them. 

The only memorable character is the guy in the Mickey Mouse mask only because he's wearing a Mickey Mouse mask. None of the other characters are interesting nor memorable. So, there's hardly (if any) any sympathy when they die. 

With all the doors chained, no one has the brilliant idea to break the front glass doors or any of the windows and escape.  

What's weird is that this killer somehow has the power to teleport. At first I thought it was bad continuity. Once the movie establishes his ability to teleport, it comes across as a lame solution to bad continuity. It's as if the producers weren't interested in putting in the work of going back and reshooting or making necessary edits to improve continuity. 

However, when he gets caught in strobe lights, he can't teleport. It's random as hell, stupidly predictable, and thankfully forgettable.

There's nothing original, scary or even semi-worthwhile about this bitterly mundane bore-fest. 

Sophie McIntosh as "Alex."

There's a side story that made no sense to me. I couldn't follow what was happening within this side story, so I won't even bother trying to explain it. 

The movie relies solely on Mickey Mouse's face being used in a horror movie. Everything else is unoriginal, uninspired, and terribly banal. And even Mickey's image adds nothing. It's not scary. It's not unsettling. The only thing Mickey's image, and the entire story in general, can produce is a yawn and an eyeroll. Cliché is not a big enough word.

The acting is horrible. The lines are embarrassingly scripted. The story is non-sensical. The characters are poorly established. Nothing about them is convincing. I didn't even know who was who. This movie doesn't deserve any significance, regardless of what it dares to do with Mickey's image. And what's most frustrating is how proud this movie is of itself for trying to turn Mickey Mouse into a horror movie villain. 

It's one big gimmick of a movie. It's almost like a gag gift to horror fans, but certainly not to Disney fans. It feels as though as the writers knew they could take Mickey Mouse from "Steamboat Willie" and work him into a horror flick, they made this movie as quickly as they could to beat anyone else who might do the same just so they could be the first to say, "look what we did with Mickey!" 

It's certainly proud of itself for doing just that. 

It's a big, conceited flop. As soon as the Star Wars screen crawl explaining that neither the production company nor the movie are affiliated with Disney and its subsidiaries, the producers surely wanted to get through the pesky dialogue and writing just to get to the Mickey and horror. They even had to steal a line from the 1996 far better horror movie "Scream." 

"Mouse Trap" feels like a college freshman film class project produced haphazardly with no time for creativity or thought. I'd ask if the movie has some underlying social commentary about Disney as a global entertainment giant, and how it has influenced the world, but that would involve the writers actually writing something interesting, even if by accident. The movie strikes me as too stupid and lazy to work something like that in. "Mouse Trap" is a disgrace to Mickey Mouse whom the movie claims to love. It's one poor mess of a gimmick.  

209) The Raven (1963)

"If I would have been sober, which I admit doesn't happen very often, but, it would have been an entirely different story! Entirely different."

Director

Roger Corman

Cast
Vincent Price - Dr. Erasmus Craven
Peter Lorre - Dr. Adolphus Bedlo
Boris Karloff - Dr. Scarabus
Hazel Court - Lenore Craven
Olive Sturgess - Estelle Craven
Jack Nicholson - Rexford Bedlo
Connie Wallace - Maid
William Baskin - Grimes
Aaron Saxon - Gort

If I walked up to any random person on the street and asked them what the first thing is that comes to their mind when I mention the macabre poet and storyteller, Edgar Allan Poe, chances are his 1845 poem "The Raven" is what they'd say. 

It's probably his most iconic and notable work. I mean, there's even an NFL football in Baltimore named after Poe's famous poem. What other writer has a sports team named after their work?

For me, it brings to mind my high school English class in which every month for all four years of high school, I and everyone else in my class had to memorize an assigned poem or sonnet, and then recite it in front of the class. One of those poems I had to memorize was, "The Raven." Too bad I don't remember the entire poem. 

Roger Corman's fifth Poe film happens to be (finally) "The Raven" - not to be confused with the 1935 movie, also called "The Raven," directed by Lew Landers. I happen to have that original movie in my film library and I'll get to it eventually.  

While Corman's previous Poe movie "Tales of Terror" felt the most Poe-like so far as it tells a trio of short stories, and Poe was a writer of short stories and poems, "The Raven" surprisingly feels the most un-Poe like. 

Honestly, I'm torn on this movie. I enjoyed it overall for its own sake. I'm also of the opinion that movies based on books and such don't have to completely follow the book. But I do think they need to respect their source material. They shouldn't convey an opposite message of what the author originally intended. Nor should it stray so far from the original source material were it becomes completely unrecognizable.

Vincent Price returns once again along with some other well-known and well-respected stars - Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and a young Jack Nicholson. Lorre stars in the previous Poe movie, "Tales of Terror."

Nicholson and Karloff also appear in Corman's following movie "The Terror" which was filmed on the back of "The Raven." That's an interesting story for another time.

Nicholson also has a cameo in Corman's popular 1960 flick "Little Shop of Horrors." He's also in the 1958 film "The Baby Killers" produced by Corman. 

Anyways, "The Raven" starts off in a similar way as the poem as Vincent Price recites the opening of the poem before the movie goes in a completely different direction that's miles from Poe's original work. 

Vincent Price as Dr. Craven in "The Raven."

In this movie, matching in the Gothic horror style of the previous Poe movies, the poem's narrator - the one mourning over his lost Lenore - is a magician and sorcerer named Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price). Lenore has been dead for the prior two years. 

His daughter, Estelle (Olive Sturgess) is truly concerned about her father as she watches him exist in his morose state since the death of her mother.

One night, a raven lands on his window sill tapping on his window. He lets the bird fly into his study much to his amusement. 

I'll add here that this is the best dialogue in the entire movie.

Craven asks the bird, "Are you some dark-winged messenger from beyond?"

The bird doesn't respond. 
"Answer me, monster, tell me truly," he says.

But still, nothing.
"Shall I ever hold again that radiant maiden whom the angels call Lenore?"

Finally, the raven responds.

"How the hell should I know?" 

It brings to mind "The Simpsons" take on "The Raven" from the "Treehouse of Horror" episode in season two which aired back back in 1990. 

In their version, more faithful to the poem, Bart takes on the role of the raven, who initially quoths to Homer, mourning his lost Lenore (depicted as Marge), with "Eat my shorts." His sister, Lisa who's reciting the poem, reprimands him to take it seriously. 

Anyways, the raven is actually another sorcerer, Dr. Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre). He was transformed into a raven during a duel with Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff). 

So, Bedlo asks Craven to help turn him back into his human form. And once he does, the two of them hunt down Scarabus to take revenge. 

Bedlo wants to get back at him for turning him into a raven. And Craven wants to get his hands on Scarabus because Bedlo swears he saw Craven's beloved Lenore inside Scarabus's castle. 

Estelle, along with Bedlo's son, Rexford (Jack Nicholson) join them in their mission to find and battle Scarabus. 

Peter Lorre and Jack Nicholson.

There's not really enough content in the source material to make an entertaining movie. If the film's writers just used the scenario as Poe wrote it, the movie would be nothing more that the narrator pondering, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, brooding over his lost Lenore while arguing with a cheeky raven perched upon a bust of Pallas just above his chamber door. Perched, sitting, and nothing more. In other words, it would probably be painfully boring!

So, to prevent that, the movie takes a sharp right turn as soon as the raven utters his first line and takes a whimsical juvenile tone than previous Poe movies from Corman. 

Clearly, since "The Raven" is a poem, this movie takes some major liberties with it, turning it into something completely different. I both disliked and loved this movie. I'm torn. 

The story concludes with a duel of spells between Price and Karloff that must have been hilarious to watch on set sans the early special effects. 

I get the impression it's not supposed to be funny but the actors wouldn't mind at all if they saw audiences laughing at them through the whole scene. It feels heavier with comedy than the previous Poe movies in this series. 

While the previous movie had a Poe-like style and feel to it, though I don't know how accurate it is compared to the book, "The Raven" takes perhaps the most well known of Poe's works, gives it lip service in the beginning, and then deviates so far from the source material that it's not even recognizable. It's 99 percent Corman and one percent Poe. 

There is something very iconic of seeing Vincent Price with the raven perched on his arm. It's as though his tie in with such an iconic and well-known poem is meant to be. It's kind of like Sherlock Holmes investigating Jack the Ripper's murders. That has been depicted several times. The 1979 movie "Murder by Decree" comes to mind. 

With the final climax resembling something out of a live-action Disney movie, I'm a bit surprised that out of all of Corman's Poe movies, this one, based on Poe's most well known poem, is the most disappointing and laughable. But I like it for its absurdity, cast, performances, and laughs despite it deviating so far from Poe's genius. The story in and of itself is a trip to watch. For what it is, it's cheesiness is entertaining, and the cast is clearly enjoying it.