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Stars: Luke Avoledo, Nick Biskupek, Simon Phillips, Michael Swatton, Dan Molson, Sayla de Goede, Camille Blott, Paul Whitney | Written by Simon Phillips | Directed by Taylor Martin

Silent Bite is the third exercise in seasonal slaughter from writer/actor Simon Phillips, who also gave us Once Upon a Time at Christmas and its sequel The Nights Before Christmas. While they weren’t the greatest examples of the genre, they were far from the worst as well, and they do say the third time is the charm, so I decided to kick off my Christmas viewing with it.

A gang of Santa suited bank robbers, Prancer, Grinch, Father Christmas (Simon Phillips), and Snowman, are hiding out at The Jolly Roger Inn and Resort. Despite its name, it’s a dump in the middle of nowhere, which makes it perfect for them to lie low while Rudolph leads the police on a wild good chase.

Well, we all knew this was coming: Disney has gone dark thanks to “Steamboat Willie” now being in the public domain.

The earliest version of the conglomerate’s iconic Mickey Mouse character is now up for grabs — and the team behind the upcoming horror film “The Mouse Trap” wasted no time reimagining Mickey as a murderer.

Jamie Bailey directs the twisted take on the mouse with Simon Phillips playing the serial killer version of Mickey. The teaser trailer was released January 1 to announce the project just as the character entered the public domain and legally could be incorporated in Disney-less films.

The official synopsis reads: “It’s Alex’s 21st Birthday, but she’s stuck at the amusement arcade on a late shift so her friends decide to surprise her, but a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse decides to play a game of his own with them which she must survive.

”We just wanted to have fun with it all,” says director of ’Mickey’s Mouse Trap’.

Steamboat Willie, the 1928 short film which was the first to feature Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, entered the public domain on January 1 and independent filmmakers are preparing genre versions of the beloved children’s characters.

These iterations of the world’s most celebrated cartoon mice are now available to anyone to interpret without fear of legal reprisal.

However creators will need to tread carefully. Disney’s army of lawyers will be monitoring the situation to ensure no third party work depicts post-1928 interpretations of Mickey and Minnie,...

”We just wanted to have fun with it all,” says director of ’Mickey’s Mouse Trap’.

Steamboat Willie, the 1928 short film which was the first to feature Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, entered the public domain on January 1 and independent filmmakers are preparing genre versions of the beloved children’s characters.

These iterations of the world’s most celebrated cartoon mice are now available to anyone to interpret without fear of legal reprisal – although Disney’s army of lawyers will be watching closely to ensure no new work depicts post-1928 interpretations of Mickey and Minnie.

On Monday filmmaker Jamie Bailey...

Well, that didn’t take long.

On the first day that Disney’s 1928 short Steamboat Willie entered the public domain, a trailer has dropped for a horror comedy film featuring none other than Mickey Mouse as the killer.

The synopsis for the film, called Mickey’s Mouse Trap, reads: “It’s Alex’s 21st birthday, but she’s stuck at the amusement arcade on a late shift so her friends decide to surprise her, but a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse decides to play a game of his own with them which she must survive.”

The trailer features, yep, a person in a Mickey Mouse costume, wearing what resembles a hockey jersey without the letters, attacking a victim and stalking others inside a Chuck E. Cheese-type place (reminiscent of last year’s horror hit Five Nights at Freddy’s). There also is Scream-like self-awareness about the horror genre, including one...