The Vanishing of S.S. Willie (Horror Short Film)

A lost 1928 documentary about a missing ship is discovered, and its dark secrets unearthed.

A short analog horror film based on the public domain film "Steamboat Willie" by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney. This film is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by The Walt Disney Company.

Credits:
Directed and Written by Nick Lives
Original Art by Nick Lives
Sound Design by David Johnsen
Wood Texture by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Silent Movie Title Card Texture by Farrin N. Abbott, CopyCatFilms

All Music sourced from The Library of Congress:
"The Legend"
"Turkey In The Straw"
"Steamboat Bill"

[ericj]

Very creative somebody actually watched the original short and didn’t just settling for Mickey being a random slasher. Also refreshing for it to be in a world of animals.

[Exploding_Bagels]

What's really disturbing about the " oddly mutilated" corpses is basically the fact that they were alive. The crew members were butchered in such a way they still managed to live and be able to scream, as heard in the " our music" record.

[ZippityZab]

HOLY SHIT.

The twist on "making music" shook me off guard when I realized what was happening. Translating the rubberhose sound effects to Mickey brutally murdering his crewmates and playing songs with their bodies is terrifying, but the screaming overlaying the original Steamboat Willie? Absolutely ingenious

[akend]

The “strange mutilations” are a reference to how Mickey and Minnie quite infamously abused several animals to play the music in the Steamboat Willie short, such as Mickey playing a cow’s teeth like a piano (referenced by the corpse at 7:20). The record playing at the end is audio from the Steamboat Willie short, but warped and distorted with muffled screaming added, giving a more horror-based reimagining of how Mickey and Minnie made their “beautiful music.”
The Cabin Boy and Chambermaid in the video are, of course, stand ins for Mickey and Minnie.
Just thought I’d share what I noticed. ; )

[Leprechaunproduction]

It's so refreshing to see a horror film that doesn't rely on jumpscares or gore to be scary.

[SnowyTriton]

The Cabin Boy and Chamber Maid going "missing" probably means they got on a life raft and left, which is coincidentally why the captain stops hearing the "music", as they are done, and when the captain goes down to investigate, he finds the dead and mutilated corpses of his crewmates and just cant take it, so he shoots himself with the gun he armed himself with, which is why when they find his corpse, he isn't mutilated like the others.

[heitorkrammel]

Something no one has been talking about: The audio from the music was recorded in a Vinyl. Vinyls can have 2 recordings at once, one on each side of the disk. I’d like to hear the second side of the vinyl In case that the creator ever makes a sequel

[Randomyoutuber-]

The scariest part about this? There’s a very real possibility that the cabin boy and the chamber maid sank the ship intentionally to cover up their crimes and successfully fled in a lifeboat.

Which means…THEY’RE STILL OUT THERE. Somewhere in the world…

[BestOfTsars]

Props to Captain Pete on having the well being of his crew in mind

[fennekinflames]

Here's my take on this. The SS Willie disappeared in 1909, with no one knowing what happened to it. However, in 1928, it was finally discovered what happened. The Cabin Boy and Chambermaid killed the entire crew, including the captain, and staged the captain's death as a suicide. They hoped he'd be blamed for the other three deaths. The two sank the ship and jumped off before it fully sank. Their "wedding" wasn't a wedding at all, it was a satanic ritual. They wanted to gain powers from the ritual, so they mutilated three crew members into instruments, and killed the captain when they figured out that he knew everything. The "I found the music" wasn't written by the captain, it was written by the Chambermaid in an effort to fool those on their tail. They likely left the record behind so they wouldn't have any evidence on them. They didn't want anyone to find out what truly happened. When they found out someone was making a documentary and had put together what might've happened, they didn't take any chances, they set fire to the studio and seemingly destroyed all copies of the documentary. Unbeknownst to them, one copy secretly survived, and was kept hidden by one of the crew involved in making the documentary. He saw the Cabin Boy and Chambermaid setting fire to the studio, and decided to go into hiding. He passed down the film with strict instructions to not release it until 2024, well after his death, he wanted to make sure that no one involved with the case would be alive by this point.

By this point, the Cabin Boy and Chambermaid had been dead for several years, having died of "natural causes, " so the film was safely released in 2024, with no threat of danger. The Cabin Boy and Chambermaid did gain powers, but it came at a cost. They would die on New Years Day in 1984, and not a moment before or after.

[kaijuguy]

Extremely unnerving but in a good way! This is such a creative way to go about a Mickey Mouse horror story especially in a silent movie fashion. The fact that you have an idea of how the sevens went down but it’s also still open to interpretation is such a good balance

[karenbonds]

This is so dang refreshing. Instead of just slapping mickey’s likeness on a generic killer, monster, or some other out of place scenario, you take the source material of Steamboat Willie and use it to your advantage! Reminds me of The Demeter from the Dracula novel.

I can imagine a short point & click adventure game with this concept behind it. Maybe playing as the Parrot character as you try to find out the mysteries behind the steamboat disappearances.

[Fishycheese]

Fun fact: at 1:40 when the crew is shown, the first mate is an edited photo of a real man, Charles Lightoller. He was the Second Officer on the RMS Titanic when it went down and survived along with 20 others on the bottom of upturned Collapsable B, one of the last 2 boats that had to be floated off of the ship due to the water beginning to wash onto the boat deck. He the served in WWI and can out of retirement to save troops at Dunkirk in WWII. He was an absolute badass and definitely deserves a Wikipedia search for him.

[Brianna-eonu]

Now THIS is how you make a public domain Mickey horror story!
I love how, unlike the other Steamboat Willie horror projects out there that just slap Mickey’s face onto their slasher villain or zombie virus or what have you and call it a day, you actually took the original story and it’s contents and mined it for horror. Taking the cartoony gags, for instance, and reimagining them as something more body-horror adjacent.

Creative AND genuinely unsettling. Amazing work!

[lightningrodstudios]

Finally a team that understands horror comes from atmosphere and not cheap and easy startles of the audience

[Mchpencil]

This was terrifying even though I didn't have headphones on. amazing way to make it an older style of film so when someone was talking it would have subtitles right after, although people don't like when public domain is turned into horror characters, this was amazingly well done.

[lordcurze]

Day One of Steamboat Willie being public domain, and we're already getting bangers like this

[Sailor_Vaporeon]

I actually adore this take on the animation. Putting the Steamboat Willie in a “Titanic” situation is pretty refreshing. Also leaving the story in mystery is actually a genius idea.
12/10

[Dalton_Boardman]

3:16 having watched the original short this actually made my eyes widen with the realization.

I like the clever way used to not show the characters names. This is an interesting take on Steamboat Willie and this early we should probably treat the subject carefully as to not anger the big eared company. Although I do hope that it's not necessary in the long run. I'd like for other non-Disney adaptations of this story to be able to just say who is who.

[imperiomx]

From what I can tell, the victims were turned/used as music instruments by Mickey and Minnie or in this case the Chambermaid and the Cabin boy. On November 19 They first killed one of the Deck hands. On November 20th they killed the second Deck hand. On November 21st, The chambermaid and cabin boy disappeared, the weird smell probably refers to the dead bodies of their victims. By this time the only ones remaining are the First mate and the captain which means the captain wrote those entries. The cow was turned into a piano, I can’t tell what the pig was turned into, maybe an accordion? And the first mate was turned into a phonograph. The captain was just murdered.

Edit: when the audio recording is playing at 8:00 you can see The cabin boy’s face.
When you play the audio at 2x speed you can hear the whistle theme *I think*