Mouseboat Massacre

Mouseboat Massacre (2025) is a British slasher horror film directed by Andrea M. Catinella, conceived as a horror reimagining of the 1928 Disney/Ub Iwerks animated short Steamboat Willie, capitalizing on the character's entry into the public domain in January 2024. A young woman named Mimi is battling a serious drug addiction when her family — parents, brother, and sister — brings her to a remote house by the lake in an attempt at an intervention. While searching for something to watch, Mimi discovers a cache of old video cassettes and plays one, which turns out to be an old cartoon. Viewing the tape appears to summon a masked killer: a man in a mouse mask (played by Jay Robertson) who stalks and murders those around her with brutal, visceral force. The killer moves with deliberate, slow menace reminiscent of Michael Myers and emits a distinctive whistling sound — an echo of the cartoon character's original vocalizations — immediately before each attack. When Mimi tries to warn her family, they dismiss her panicked screams as symptoms of drug withdrawal rather than real danger, leaving her isolated and disbelieved as the body count rises. The film employs a cursed-video conceit similar to The Ring, tying the supernatural threat directly to the act of watching the cassette. Coverage notes the ending is considered underwhelming and the origin story of the killer is left largely nonsensical, though the atmospheric tension and graphic gore are noted as functional horror elements.

Sources: Wikipedia, MLMillerWrites review, IMDb search