INTERVIEW: Be careful when you board this ‘Screamboat’
Photo: David Howard Thornton, of Terrifier fame, portrays the title character in Screamboat. Photo courtesy of Screamboat / Provided by press rep with permission.
The team behind The Mean One, the horror-comedy sendup of the Grinch that hit theaters in 2023, is back with a similar journey into the public domain. This time they are releasing Screamboat, a parody of Steamboat Willie, an early black-and-white cartoon that led to Walt Disney’s success. In this new horror flick, which releases in theaters today, April 2, a murderous mouse named Screamboat Willie strikes fear into the hearts of passengers on the Staten Island ferry. He may be small, but he packs a big punch.
David Howard Thornton played the title character in The Mean One, and he’s found international success as Art the Clown in the Terrifier films. The actor is back with the creative team to play Willie in this rat-infested feature. Joining him for the ride is Amy Schumacher, who stars in the movie and serves as a producer. Steven LaMorte is credited as writer and director.
“After our last film, The Mean One, which is another horror-comedy adaptation, we knew we wanted to do another project,” LaMorte said in a recent phone interview. “I was trying to figure out what character or thing to adapt, and Amy knew that I was searching for a story for our new film. And she said, ‘Well, you’re getting really frustrated trying to come up with a character you want to do. Why don’t you focus on a story you want to tell?’ I’m from New York City, and I’m from Staten Island. So I’ve taken the Staten Island ferry like a million times in my life, and I said, I’ve always wanted to make a horror movie on the Staten Island ferry.’ I did a little bit of research, and it turns out the Staten Island ferry was originally a steamboat. And once I discovered that Steamboat Willie was going to go into the public domain, we said, ‘Oh my goodness. This is how I make my Staten Island ferry horror film, using a character that people already know and love, Steamboat Willie.’ And so we’re going to put him on a boat. We’re going to make him tiny, and we’re going to set him loose killing people in New York City.”
One of the caveats for this creative team was to develop a story idea that would work for LaMorte’s directing style and have a role for Schumacher to act in. When the two produce together, they are on the hunt for concepts that would cater to their strengths.
“Something Steven wants to direct and then something that lends itself to having me be one of the actors in it,” Schumacher said. “I was absolutely down for the idea at first. I think the thing we went back and forth on the most was can we make the creature small, and Steven knew right away that he definitely wanted to do that. And I kept hemming and hawing saying it’ll be so much easier if he isn’t small. We’re adding a huge challenge by making him little. I think in the end we definitely made the right decision, and it was a challenge. But that was something we definitely went back and forth on.”
There’s a lot of crossover between the Terrifier films and what LaMorte and Schumacher are doing with their public-domain horror films, least of all that they share the same star, with Thornton portraying the lead character in each movie.
“I actually went to high school with the producers of Terrifier, so I’ve known those guys, Mike Leavy and Steven Della Salla, since I was 14,” LaMorte said. “And so we’ve been shooting videos and making skits and trying to make our classmates laugh on camera for 20-plus years, and we’ve been at this forever. They’ve known they wanted to do horror for a long time. They’ve been doing conventions and making horror films and horror comedies since we were in high school together, and then once I graduated college and moved to Los Angeles, I gravitated more toward making genre films. And every time I had a success or they had a success, we of course still supported each other.”
LaMorte described this group of creatives as “fiercely independent,” and they often shine a spotlight on the so-called “forgotten borough” of Staten Island. “I don’t know if it’s always the best light since Terrifier is a pretty extreme horror film,” he said with a laugh, “but there’s definitely creativity and a can-do attitude and independent streak that’s coming out of Staten Island.”
What audiences will see in Screamboat is very much based on lessons learned when the team created The Mean One. They tried not to repeat any mistakes, and they sought to expand their vision for this new mouse picture.
“We learned a lot of lessons on The Mean One, and some of that being working with copyright or public domain and also honoring the character and honoring the original,” Schumacher said. “And we really tried to do that with Screamboat as well, adding in lore, adding in a love for Disney, adding in a love for the character, not just slapping something together to use the IP, but creating a creature, creating a world. So those elements we definitely learned.”
She added: “But as far as The Mean One having success, I think it gave us an ability to make a few bigger asks. … For example, our creature designer, Quantum Creation, came onboard. They liked The Mean One. They wanted to help us level up. We were able to have a little bit more resources and understand where we needed to put our resources a little bit better on this one than The Mean One, and that came from learning some lessons on that shoot. We’ve been building a fan base and learning the horror fandom a little more, and connecting with that world in terms of what people love and what makes them excited because we want to create a theatrical experience, something that is comedy and horror and sort of mashes the worlds together.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Screamboat, written and directed by Steven LaMorte and starring Amy Schumacher, is now playing in movie theaters.
