Prime Time: The Mouse Trap (2024)

I've been around a bit. Which means I'm old, but also means that I have learned many lessons. Most of those lessons are visible in my online writing. I used to try and tag movie titles all over social media, whether the review was good or bad. Then I discovered that was a bad thing, particularly when the review is bad and the film-makers see it appearing in places they may not want to see it. I used to be a bit more free and easy with my insults, although I am pretty sure that I still did my best to avoid getting personal. And I used to live in a world in which many of the horror movies looking to make a quick payday seemed just a bit less cynical.

The Mouse Trap is another of those recent movies that is cashing in on an expired copyright (this particular one belonging to "Steamboat Willie"). It's written by Simon Phillips, an actor and writer involved in some very poor genre movies throughout the past two decades. It's directed by Jamie Bailey. The last thing I saw from this duo was Deinfluencer, a film so bad that it makes The Mouse Trap seem wonderful in comparison. And The Mouse Trap is decidedly not wonderful.

There's a wraparound that shows two detectives interviewing a young woman (Rebecca, played by Mackenzie Mills) who has just survived a massacre at an amusement arcade. The killer was wearing a very familiar mask, and may have the power of teleportation. This makes it much easier for him to carve his way through everyone who has turned up after hours to celebrate the birthday of Alex (Sophie McIntosh). Simple, eh. So you should expect a cheap film that keeps a focus on gratuitous violence, and maybe also some gratuitous nudity. That's not what you get though. 

There's an amusing opening scroll that allows the film-makers to acknowledge their cheek at (mis)using something simply based on the availability of it, but that's the only thing here that is worth your time. I don't want to be overly harsh on the cast members, despite nobody being all that good, so I'll just say that nobody manages to deliver a character with any depth, or worth caring about in the slightest. A large part of that is to do with the writing, of course, but Mills, McIntosh, Madeline Kelman, Ben Harris, Callum Sywyk, Mireille Gagné, James Laurin, and Kayleigh Styles are only being mentioned here because I can check the cast list online. I couldn't pick any of them out of a lineup if my life depended on it, and I only just finished watching the film.

I blame both Bailey and Phillips equally for this mess. At best, this could have been a silly bit of murder and mayhem. If there's no need for logic then there's no need to limit the creativity. Sadly, this is a tame and, worst of all, boring slasher movie that barely delivers enough bloodshed, let alone anything else that could have made it more entertaining. The 80-minute runtime feels much longer than that, and I guarantee that there are dozens of other cheap slasher movies that do a much better job without making use of some misappropriated iconography. 

Yes, I'll watch every other movie like this. I'm going to check out Screamboat, I'll eventually check out that second Winnie The Pooh horror, Popeye's Revenge, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, and Bambi: The Reckoning too. I doubt I'll enjoy many (if any) of them. But I can now hope that they're at least more fun than this dull dreck.  

2/10

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Prime Time: No Way Up (2023)

As someone who is not good on aeroplanes, and also someone who is terrified of the idea of ever being in the same space as sharks, I have long joked that my biggest fear is to be involved in a plane crash that leaves me floating in the sea, surrounded by sharks. No Way Up takes that idea and tries to add a slight twist, by putting the plane underwater and having the shark able to nose inside. Uh oh.

Things start in the expected way. We meet a variety of people we will then watch try to survive a perilous situation. The three bright young things who seem to be the leads are Ava (Sophie McIntosh), Jed (Jeremias Amoore), and Kyle (Will Attenborough). They are accompanied by Ava's bodyguard, Brandon (Colm Meaney). There are also a pair of grandparents on board with their granddaughter, Rosa (Grace Nettle). Add at least one air steward (Danilo, played by Manuel Pacific), and you may have enough potential snacks for a curious shark. If not, don't worry, a rescue team will soon send down some divers.

If I had recognised the name of director Claudio Fäh before pressing play on this then I may not have taken the chance. Although they have since helmed a number of what may well be enjoyable and entertaining non-theatrical movies, I last experienced their work when I sat through the dire Hollow Man 2. They've definitely improved over the years though, even if this is very standard and predictable stuff.

Writer Andy Mayson only has this screenplay to his credit, so far, but he does enough to show that he knows what kind of formula to work with. None of the characters are particularly great, which is down to the performances not helping the lacklustre writing, but people get their little bit of character development as they start to become more afraid and figure out ways to avoid becoming shark food.

Meaney is the standout, as expected, but the fact that his name looms so large over the others in the cast list means that his storyline feels very obvious. Still, it's a pleasure to have him onscreen. McIntosh also does well, and the film isn't so bad when it focuses on her finding her strength and courage. Phyllis Logan is a sweet grandmother, with Nettle doing okay as the scared little girl, but the rest (Attenborough, Amoore, Pacific, etc) were all just people that I wanted to see turned into chum as soon as possible. Whether that happened or not, and whether any of it was satisfying enough, is something I will leave you to discover for yourself.

This works hard around what I am assuming is a relatively low budget, and it gets more right than wrong. There's a general good sense of the geography of the plane, in terms of the interior layout and where it is perilously placed under the water, the cinematography from Andrew Rodger is clean and clear (aside from the times when shark attacks require some choppy editing), and it's a disaster movie that follows a well-used template, with added fins. It sadly never quite hits the heights it should though, due to the quality and quantity of the potential victims, but it does enough to sit in the mid-tier of modern shark movies.

5/10

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