All Aboard the ‘Screamboat’— Director Steven LaMorte & Producer Amy Schumacher Preview Disney Slasher [Interview]

At a recent fan event at the ScarePros Halloween, Horror Toys & Collectibles store in Levittown, PA, based 30 minutes outside Philadelphia, Bloody Disgusting caught up with Screamboat director Steven LaMorte and his wife, co-producer and co-star Amy Schumacher (and the approximately 2-ft tall prop puppet used in the film).

Screamboat marks the first full film to be shot on the Staten Island Ferry (they’re still discovering fake blood stickiness on the boat, several months post-shooting!), and LaMorte and Schumacher talked with us about what makes the ferry a perfect slasher setting, the genius of David Howard Thornton, and Friday the 13th Part VIII’s imprint on the NYC-set film.

Iconic Events Releasing is bringing Screamboat to theaters on April 2.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bloody Disgusting: Tell me what attracted you to the Steamboat Willie character and why you wanted to join in on the Disney-turns-horror craze— which is absolutely a craze right now.

Steven LaMorte: I’ve always wanted to make a horror movie set on the Staten Island Ferry, and after our viral sensation that was The Mean One (2022) we knew we wanted to adapt another character, and we’d been looking around for something to do, and I couldn’t find anything that I was connecting with. Amy said, ‘What’s a movie you always wanted to make? Let’s start there.’ And I always knew I wanted to make this Staten Island Ferry slasher. We realized Steamboat Willie may be coming into the public domain, and I did a little research, and it turns out that the Staten Island Ferry was powered by steam, back in the 1800s and up til the ’70s. We said, ‘There you go— that’s the monster for our Staten Island Ferry movie.’ What’s better than having the Staten Island Ferry, Steamboat Willie as the miniature murder mouse, running around and killing commuters, with the backdrop of New York City? (Laughs.)

Amy Schumacher: Something that is important to us as we’re adapting, even with this and The Mean One, is that, we wanted to make sure the story we were telling and the movie that we’re making is honoring the IP— not that we’re making any movie that you just put the character in— this is a Steamboat Willie horror movie. It’s not any other slasher where you could drop a guy in a mask into the movie and it still makes sense. Without Steamboat Willie in this movie, it’s not the movie.

BD: Even with the IP in the public domain, was there still any trepidation regarding making references to the almighty House of Mouse?

AS: We’re really cognizant of it. We have consulted with our lawyer about what it is and isn’t okay for us to use. Like, he doesn’t speak in the movie. He’s black and white. He has to wear his hat. Those are some of the key things. With the other nods or Disney jokes and elements within the movie, I think they’re more homages— us trying to honor the other IP versus taking it.

SM: I think some people have this preconceived notion that maybe we don’t like Disney or that we have some kind of negative opinion on it, but it’s the opposite. We love Disney— we’re honoring it. We know that if you don’t like Disney, you’re going to have a lot of fun. If you’re a David Howard Thornton fan, if you’re a Terrifier fan, you’ll have fun— there’s lots of blood. But if you’re a Disney fan, you’ll really have fun, because we’re fans, too. We think (Disney) would like it! We’re sticking to the rules.

BD: David Howard Thornton was also your Grinch in The Mean One, and he seems to be down for just about anything. Tell me about your relationship with him, and walk me through his casting process, and what specifically about him made him perfect for the Mouse.

SM: Before we even had a script, we knew David was our first choice.

AS: We approached him when we first decided this was going to be our next project and asked him. No one else was asked or cast yet. And he was one hundred and fifty percent on-board. He’s also a really big Disney fan. He knows all the references, and he’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of Disney characters and things. And he had played Mickey Mouse in one of his first school productions, so that was a fun throwback for him. But the most important thing is his ability to work in prosthetics and still emote through it and create life and character. We didn’t want a character that felt like it was a static mask— we wanted to make sure he was able to be David. And he’s so silly and goofy, and we knew he’d be able to bring that cartoonish-ness to it and also be the scary killer creature.

SM: Having David be cast as Steamboat Willie informed the script, because we knew that, ‘Okay, David’s going to play the role, then the makeup, the prosthetics, and the design of the creature has to support the kind of animated performance he’s going to give.’ But it also meant that, we didn’t want to just have Steamboat Willie be giant and creepy and just stand there— we knew he could be imaginative and mischievous, and throw these big cartoonish performances. David is like a live-action cartoon character— he can’t help himself. He does all these brilliant facial expressions. Our Steamboat Willie has life, because at the heart, is David Howard Thornton.

BD: As some fans may not yet realize Willie’s small stature, talk about the SFX work in the film. Was your work with Quantum Creation FX for the Willie creature a collaborative one? How much say over the design did you have?

SM: In LA, we did miniatures, water tank work, LED wall stuff like Mandalorian, digital trickery— pretty much every classic film trick in the book— to help bring our little Willie to life. They’re so collaborative. We started with an amazing concept artist named Christian Cordella, who helped us design the look, and we looked at everything from the kind of fur he would have, to what is motivated from the story, to ‘How big is the hat? How big are his hands? Oh, David’s going to play the role. How are we going to readjust the proportions of the creature to match his body? Since he has to wear the suit.’ We looked at a very famous stature to determine how tall Willie should be. We then brought that to Christian Beckman from Quantum, whom had just come off of The Last Voyage of the Demeter. They knew, not only that we had to honor the design of the character and the lore, but we also had to build something David could perform in. We didn’t want a theme park mascot— he needed to be able to blink, whistle, and move his little nose and eyebrows.

BD: Tell me about your casting process with Terrifier 2’s Kailey Hyman, as well as your relationship with Fuzz on the Lens Productions and other shared Terrifier crew members.

AS: We knew of Kailey through the Terrifier movies, and when we were doing the casting, we asked the guys to submit anybody who we thought would be good. A lot of people auditioned for her part (as Cindi). As the key birthday brigade girl, we had to cast her first, and then figure out who else would be there. When Kailey auditioned, we immediately knew she was it, but we still went though the process to do these chemistry reads, to make sure she could vibe with the other characters. She was the only one we called back, and then we called other people to play off of her. She’s so funny. She’s ridiculous in this movie in the best way possible.

SM: It led to her getting the unfortunate burden of, ‘I know it’s not scripted, but can you do a toast?’ And she’s so good at improv that she made some of these scenes funnier. We have these alternate versions of Kailey’s scenes, where she did totally different things, performance-wise. They have to put it on the special features on physical media. As for Fuzz on the Lens, we all knew each other since high school. We’ve been shooting videos, including ones we shot on the Ferry, since then. We would all get together and collaborate and say, ‘When are we going to make a movie together?’ (After Terrifier 2 and The Mean One) we brought the whole gang together, and it made for this whole bicoastal, blended family. They bring such great knowledge of the horror genre and how to execute the gore. Our film has a Terrifier-level of gore, in addition to a Mean One-level of comedy and poking fun at the source material, and seeing those things come together is like the best of both worlds. Screamboat is like the next step for all of us.

BD: As Kailey dons a Disney princess costume in the film, what inspired you to create the pseudo-Disney princess characters in the film?

SM: It evolved, as we started realizing, ‘Why would we do just one Disney character? What if we had little winks and nods and homages?’ And as the script developed, you find these opportunities to slide a joke in here and there. Then the crew got involved, and they started putting hidden Willies on the set. One of the gore gags has a silhouette of the ears, if you look really closely. If you’re not a Disney fan, you may not get the references, but if you are, you’re in the club. Every time we’ve gone to a screening, we see people elbowing each other and coming up to us afterwards about some super obscure thing they caught in the film. There’s definitely some that are deep-cut Disney references.

AS: It creates re-watch value too, because I don’t think you can catch all of them on the first watch.

BD: Aside from Staten Island pride, what made you think the Ferry would make a great setting for a slasher film?

SM: Being from Staten Island, I’ve taken the Ferry thousands of times. It’s just part of being from Staten Island. I would take the boat back and forth to film school, and I would think, ‘There’s no escape on the Staten Island Ferry.’ Once it takes off, it’s 22 minutes of terror, especially at 2 o’clock in the morning. So if something bad happened, especially at that sweet spot where there’s no cell service, it would be a great setting for a horror film. On the other side of it, I really feel like the Staten Island Ferry is a metaphor for New York City— it’s people from all walks of life: commuters, tourists, people working on the boat. All races, all ages, all socioeconomic (statuses). And they’re all cramped in on something too small and maybe a little dirty but also has a real magic to it because, Look at that view. I also thought, if you wanted to set something in New York City and shrink it down to a microcosm, it would be the Staten Island Ferry.

BD: According to TMZ, the boat used in the film is the decommissioned Staten Island Ferry purchased by SNL stars Pete Davidson and Colin Jost. Can you talk about the story behind that?

SM: We can’t comment on who owns the boat, and there’s definitely a story there…

AS: I think this movie is only possible because we had access to a decommissioned Ferry, because while you can shoot on the Ferry, you have to get off on each side, so you can only really shoot for the length of the ride across the water, so having access to a docked Ferry was really important. The boat in our movie is a character. The Fuzz guys really pulled some strings, and with all of them being from Staten Island, and wanting to help each other out and using whatever leverage they could to be able to get access to a boat that we could shoot on was a huge part of it.

SM: Thankfully, there’s a lot of cool indie filmmaking coming out of Staten Island and horror. Everybody knows everybody, and when the community rallies behind a cause, they really show up for each other. We were very fortunate that Staten Island helped make this movie possible. Thank you to some specific Staten Islanders. (Laughs.)

BD: Did you have gritty NYC horror in mind when creating the film? Maniac or Basket Case, etc.?

SM: What turned into the biggest reference was Jason Takes Manhattan, as it should probably more accurately be called, “Jason Takes the Canadian Parts of Manhattan,” while spending most of the scenes on a boat (Laughs). Those iconic NYC shots of Jason walking through and fighting the street toughs is something about that always stood out to me. Like, New York as a vibe. What happens when New Yorkers are faced with a horror movie situation? I thought there was a lot of comedy to be had there.

BD: A few years ago, horror comedies were said to be very hard to get produced. Do you feel that’s still the case? Do you feel like horror comedies are becoming more ubiquitous again?

AS: I know for us, trying to make a tone that’s consistent throughout the movie, between the horror and the comedy, is hard to do. As an actor also, we obviously took direction from Steven, but it was tricky, because, we saw this horrific thing just happen, and as a person, I would be melting down, but it’s a comedy, so we have to keep it moving and keep it light. Not be melodramatic, but not be cheesy and corny. But in the last couple of months, we’ve seen a lot of horror comedies released and find an audience and become successful, like with The Monkey, Heart Eyes, Companion. I think there’s something happening within our society that people want something a little bit more lighthearted and an escape. At the fan screenings, watching people that don’t know each other having this group experience, laughing together and enjoying themselves— we wanted to create that.