With all the chatter around the first Mickey Mouse cartoon “Steamboat Willie” being in the public domain, I had a question. What about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, most of whose cartoons should also be in the public domain? I wonder no longer. After complaining that the upcoming “Steamboat Willie” horror film Mickey’s Mouse Trap looks like a standard slasher, today I received a press release that looks to answer my disappointment.
Let’s use that word loosely. I’m not a super fan of arbitrarily turning beloved public domain characters into horror movie leads. But it can work. The sin of a certain slasher set in the 100 Acre Woods last year wasn’t that the idea was terrible — it was that it was poorly done by somewhat talented filmmakers who thought being edgy was enough. It’s never the justification; when done right, edginess is the byproduct.
Back to that press release. A horror film called Oswald: Down the Rabbit Hole is set to start filming in March, but I’m told we can expect a teaser trailer in the next couple of weeks. And I think I might like what writer/director Lilton Stewart III has in mind. Having recently rewatched some classic Oswald cartoons, including Disney’s remaster of “Trolley Trouble,” it strikes me that absolutely there’s something even more dreamlike and arbitrary to his abilities than early Mickey Mouse. So that could mean there’s something deep and dark there — and creative.
Here’s what the production has to say for itself:
The film will follow main character, Art, and some of his closest friends to help track down his long-lost family lineage. When they find his Great-Grandpa Oswald’s abandoned home, they end up getting transported to a place lost in time, shrouded by dark Hollywood Magic.
The group finds that they are not alone when Art’s Great-Grandpa’s come-to-life cartoon Rabbit, a dark entity, decides their lives belong to it. Art and his friends must work together to escape their magical prison before the Rabbit gets to them first.
“I found my inspiration for Oswald’s rabbit from the cartoon ‘Oswald Trolley Troubles’ and saw it as an opportunity to take a horrific spin on a character that could spark some nostalgia among its audience,” Lilton Stewart III, Director said. “I was inspired by a few other films that dipped their toe into this new way of storytelling by having some of these characters turn to the dark side and am excited to debut my own adaptation of this.”
Watch this space. I’ll be following this one closely.
