It was only a matter of time before a malevolent version of beloved pal Mickey Mouse debuted on the big screen.
Now that the 1928 Steamboat Willie version of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse entered the public domain in 2024, three new projects featuring Mickey Mouse in horror films have been announced.
A trailer for one of the upcoming slasher flicks called Mickey’s Mouse Trap was shared on social media, and "Oh, boy!" This appearance of Disney's beloved mascot is quite the departure from the mouse we all know and love.
The clip is rife with horror movie tropes, including a group of teens being stalked and/or killed off, one by one.
"I'll be right back," says a ball-capped college student to his group of friends at an arcade, to which a horror movie aficionado remarks:
"Yeah, he's dead."
"Like, if it was a horror movie, you never say, 'I'll be right back.' Because then you don't."
While the scary movie self-own was referenced before in the meta-horror franchise Scream, there is still something original and amusing about a knife-wielding maniac donning a creepy mask of a beloved Disney character that had, until now, been copyrighted.
Here's the trailer below.
MICKEY'S MOUSE TRAP FILM TEASER TRAILER (2024) - FIRST EVER MICKEY MOUSE HORROR FILM!!!!youtu.be
Evil Mickey was inevitable.
Hopes aren't high for this one, however, as viewers found plenty of cheese.
According to Deadline, Mickey's Mouse Trap was shot, edited, and directed by Jamie Bailey and written by Simon Phillips.
Now that Steamboat Willie Mickey is up for grabs, movies aren't the only media pouncing on the opportunity to morph Mickey in a deranged fashion.
Nightmare Forge Games announced a new 1–4 player survival horror co-op game inspired by Steamboat Willie, called Infestation 88.
According to IGN, the description for the new survival horror game reads:
“In the year 1988, what was thought to be an outbreak of rodents in various locations morphed into something far more sinister.”
"Sometimes you’ll need to fight, sometimes you’ll need to run, and sometimes you’ll need to hide in a locker."
"You can set traps and utilize CCTV cameras to try and stay one step ahead of the infestation, and item layouts are randomized in order to help keep matches fresh.”
All books published in 1928 and all films released in 1928 that were under the Copyright Term Extension Act are now part of the public domain on January 1, 2024.
Steamboat Willie was Walt Disney and animator Ub Iwerks's animated short that debuted Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
The short also earned the distinction of being one of the first cartoons to feature synchronized sound as well as the first to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack.
The silent version of Mickey's other short released the same year, Plane Crazy, also entered the public domain; however, the copyrighted version of the short with sound will expire in 2025 since it was filed in 1929, a year after the original silent version was released.
Other Disney IPs that have entered the public domain include The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne, along with the character Tigger, and J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
Winnie the Pooh, which entered the public domain in 2022, was depicted as a bloodthirsty cubby all stuffed with rage in a horror film called Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, released last year after Disney lost exclusivity to Milne's "willy nilly silly old bear."
In response to the voided copyright of Steamboat Willie Mickey, Disney expressed that, at least for now, contemporary versions of Mickey Mouse as his wholesome self are protected.
A Disney spokesperson explained the restrictions that still apply:
“More modern versions of Mickey will remain unaffected by the expiration of the Steamboat Willie copyright, and Mickey will continue to play a leading role as a global ambassador for the Walt Disney Company in our storytelling, theme park attractions, and merchandise."
"We will, of course, continue to protect our rights in the more modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other works that remain subject to copyright, and we will work to safeguard against consumer confusion caused by unauthorized uses of Mickey and our other iconic characters.”
