The Mouse Trap

• Originally titled Mickey’s Mouse Trap
• Directed, Shot and Edited by Jamie Bailey
• August 6, 2024

A store manager masked as Mickey traps and terrorizes a group of friends celebrating inside an arcade.

My expectations for The Mouse Trap were low. A horror movie based on a now public domain property certainly sounds like a crapshoot for a film. There’s a nugget here for an interesting though not particularly original slasher movie in this. It does try to get a little meta in a Scream sort of way but also throws in a dose of the supernatural for good measure. It manages to be equal parts derivative and entertaining.

There was the implication (at least to me) this was somehow going to be a horror version of Steamboat Willie but it’s not really that. It does use the footage of Steamboat Willie in excess until it until that gets a little tired and then it’s just the killer running around in an off-brand Mickey Mouse mask.

Why does he kill? It sounds like the manager Tim Collins/Mickey Mouse (Simon Phillips) has either snapped or is possessed by the evil spirit of Steamboat Willie. Not sure but he does develop the ability of teleportation. Just like Mickey! Huh? The characters assume it with it being confirmed at the end. Why didn’t he use this more?

It opens with a rather silly comedic scroll in the style of Star Wars which not only disavows any association with Disney but Lucasfilm as well. It’s a joke and one of those ones that goes on a little too long to make it funnier. I really thought we were going to get some really bad comedy after that but instead the movie suddenly takes a more serious turn. Not into hard-core slasher horror but much more than bad horror comedy. It makes mistakes that could have elevated this further.

Like much older horror movies the characters are rather forgettable with the dialogue being almost interchangeable among them. I really can’t tell you too much about any of them. They just blurred together other than the surviving Goth chick Rebecca (Mackenzie Mills). That makes it sound like there’s no survivors, but the movie ends as if there are survivors. I have no idea what happened there.

The script does nothing to differentiate the characters and in the few moments where that could happen in some fashion it seems to turn away from doing so. Not exactly sure why it was adverse. The story is told as a flashback with the surviving Goth lesbian recounting things from her jail cell to two cops. Possibly the two worst actors cast as police officers.

Gore is limited. You’re not going to see entrails or massive amounts of blood spatter. It’s a throat slash followed by some release and that’s it. Is at least one decapitation when the knife goes across the neck too much to ask?  Or when that knife goes in the head let’s see something other than a stunned look.

Yet there is a level of fun to this. It’s stupid and I don’t exactly mean brainless. You get a weird enjoyment of seeing a guy in a Mickey Mouse mask killing people but I’m not sure that’s enough to get most viewers through. It was for me. The killer was presented menacingly in a classic style. He pops up in the background/distance ala Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers. It may be intended as bad but it does it well.

The Mouse Trap could’ve been a little better than what it was though it is just fine as is. If you like bad slasher movies then this might appeal to you but a good horror movie it is not so you are warned.