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I HEART WILLIE (2025)
3 stars
Reel 2 Reel Films. Digital. 23rd June
I am not sure I understand the recent predilection by low budget horror filmmakers with shoehorning things like Winnie the Pooh, Popeye and Mickey Mouse into their movies, just because certain iterations have lapsed into public domain.
So we have I HEART WILLIE (Onscreen title I ♥️ Willie – which could be read as I Love Willie, which is a whole other type of movie). This one claims to be inspired by STEAMBOAT WILLIE, which is one of the Disney cartoons which is now fair game for anyone to exploit.
Various scenes play under the titles which infer that a ‘mouse-boy’ was born to a German shipping tycoon and was the inspiration for the famous character. Seems perfectly reasonable!
Well he is all grown up now and Willie (played by scriptwriter David Vaughn) is clearly a psycho. Wearing a crude Mickey style mask, which he sewed himself, he is busy ripping out the teeth and tongue of a victim.
Daniel (Sergio Rogalto) and Nico (Micho Camacho) are online video makers – who are looking for a viral hit and are going to investigate ‘the real life Steamboat Willie as a serial killer’, so are heading into who knows where in Mexico, alongside Nora (Maya Luna) and Jess (Daniela Porras), as supposedly his ghost still haunts his family’s abandoned property. As they are travelling it is intercut with scenes of Willie bloodily eviscerating a victim.
Of course this may not end well for them…
The film lacks any real tension and appears to be built to show gory acts by the admittedly creepy looking serial killer who walks around shirtless and in shorts and likes to torture his victims. Apart from the Mickey Mouse angle it offers nothing new in the slasher-cum-torture porn stakes, though it’s well enough made.
One of several films ‘inspired’ by Disney’s Steamboat Willie, which include “The Mouse Trap”, “Mouse of Horrors” and “Screamboat” (which I actually enjoyed). One can only hope they soon run out of steam!
Steve Kirkham
