Director: Steven LaMorte
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Preparing for a special trip, a group of random strangers onboard a steamboat in Staten Island slowly start disappearing during the trip, which is soon revealed to be the culprit of a savage mouse killing people for coming onboard the ship forcing the survivors to try getting away alive.
Review:
This was a fairly fun slasher even without adding in the public-domain liabilities. Among the better elements of this one is the strong setup that provides plenty of straightforward slashing features. Opening up with the presentation of the ferry traveling along for it’s usual mission taking people along their route and getting to see the various travelers onboard, from the drunken birthday party that comes onboard, the designer looking to get home, a few costumed revelers looking to get to the next party, or just everyday citizens trying to get home, is a nice way to establish the characters onboard. With this providing a means of getting to know the different people onboard as well as the exasperated staff trying to keep them inline, the initial means of following in the traditional slasher setup works incredibly well as we get to see everything come together in a creepy location as it brings about the steamboat location in fine form.
That sets about bringing a series of immensely enjoyable and graphic kills that the killer mouse makes as it moves through the boat. Keeping it as a regular mouse-sized creature but more anthropomorphized in its appearance, constitution, and use of weaponry, there’s a sense of fun to be had with it, utilizing its surroundings to pull off graphic ambushes or sneak attacks. With the initial attack on the inspectors looking over the ship at the beginning, the first attacks on the stragglers using the broken mop handles to impale victims, decapitate with wire, dumping victims into the running propellers, or impaling victims with a running forklift, there’s a great deal of fun to be had not just with the creative methods being featured but also the strong suspense to set up these antics in the first place. By bringing up the frequent whistling to allow for more suspense, knowing it’s close by, these scenes go hand-in-hand with the immensely graphic and brutal kills from the large body count it features to give this a lot to like.
There are some issues here that hold it back. The main drawback on display is the rather curious decision to make the creature more of a diminutive creature rather than go for a more human-sized being. The idea of keeping this one to more realistic proportions and size means that it’s immensely silly and cheesy, trying to impart fear from full-grown humans being terrified of a mute, dancing mouse-like creature, which is the wrong way of going about doing a slasher. The scenes of characters cowering in fear from something supposedly not much bigger than their leg is a little too ridiculous to take seriously regardless of the intention behind the rest of the film, and with the creature so obviously not in the shot with others because of the size discrepancy so he’s usually on-screen by himself not interacting with anyone else the scenes are devoid of tension unnecessarily.
The big factor against the film is the series of lame and uninteresting human sidestories present that are responsible for making this one far longer than it should. The biggest part of this is the strange belief among the staff that they try to use whatever means possible to get to the captain’s spot on the ship. Yet, it just makes everyone attempting to usurp the others feel petty and just moronic why they’re fighting for the honor. The obsession with being captain makes little sense, and each of the individuals targeting the profession grows old, making this one feel rather awkward trying to work itself out. This goes equally for the seduction attempts, knowing full well that there’s a killer loose on the ship, and the finale makes good use of that, dragging this out with way too many plot-points it doesn't need to tell the story it’s trying to tell. These all bring this one down overall.
Overview: ****/5
A strong and generally fun slasher effort, this one comes across rather well for what it is, which is more than enough to bring it up over a few minor detrimental aspects found within. Those with an interest in this particular movement of public-domain-inspired genre fare, this style of slasher film in general, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like while those turned off by these factors might want to heed caution.
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