Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #586

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Mickey Mouse Horror Film Unveiled As Copyright Ends
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvf9hCgaXTU
By Noor Nanji
A trailer for a slasher film, fea- turing a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse, was released on 1 January, the day that Disney's copyright on the earliest versions of the cartoon character expired in the US.
"We wanted the polar opposite of what exists," the
movie's producer said.
A new Mickey- inspired horror game, showing the rodent cov- ered with blood stains, also dropped on the same day. Steamboat Willie, a 1928 short film featuring early non-speaking versions of Mickey and Minnie, entered the public domain
in the US on New Year's Day.
It means cartoon- ists, novelists and filmmakers can now rework and use the earli- est versions of Mickey and Minnie.
In fact, anyone can use those versions without permission or cost.
Creatives have
been quick to take advantage of the new rules, with
a trailer (contains violent scenes) for a Mickey hor- ror film dropping on the same day.
In the horror comedy thriller, called Mickey's Mouse Trap, a young woman is thrown a surprise birthday party in an amusement arcade - but
things quickly take a turn for the worse when she and her friends encounter a knife-wielding murderer in a Mickey costume.
"A place for fun, a place for friends, a place for hunting. The mouse is out," the trailer screams in red text.
"People need to not take it too seriously, we made a ridicu- lously fun movie," said Simon Phillips, who wrote and pro- duce the film and plays the man behind the Mickey mask.
Mr Phillips told the BBC that "if you put Mickey into a family movie, you don't cover new ground".
"In order to flip the coin, you have to come up with something that's the polar opposite of what
already exists," he said.
The film itself does not have a confirmed release date but is expected to be out this March.
Not to be out- done, a new video game has been unveiled, also featuring the 1928 version of Mickey.
Game studio Nightmare Forge Games said the game, titled Infestation 88, is a survival horror game in which an outbreak of ver- min turns into something more sinister.
At the start of the trailer, a man is heard saying nervously: "I thought it was just rodents, but there's something else in here."
A huge, blood splattered Mickey then pops up on screen, while mice scurry around him.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine