5 Jan – With Disney's Mickey Mouse initial copyright now expired, many have started to use the opportunity to feature the beloved animated mouse in their own creative endeavours. And now a new slasher film, featuring a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse, has released its trailer on social media on 1 January.
The movie, called "Mickey's Mouse Trap", has a young woman and her group of friends encountering the said murderer while throwing a surprise party in an amusement arcade. "A place for fun, a place for friends, a place for hunting. The mouse is out," the text in the trailer read.
Simon Phillips, who wrote, produce, and plays the killer behind the Mickey costume, stated, "People need to not take it too seriously, we made a ridiculously fun movie." "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. This is nothing new, as Winnie the Pooh was also turned into a horror flick when it entered public domain prior.
On the other hand, a new video game called "Infestation: Origins" has also been unveiled featuring the 1928 version of Mickey. It is noted that "Steamboat Willie", the first ever Mickey Mouse short that was released in 1928, entered the public domain in the US on 1 January 2024. It meant that anyone is free to copy, reuse and adapt the early versions of Mickey and his girlfriend Minnie Mouse.