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There are two completely different kinds of brutality afoot in movies like “Screamboat,” the latest in the low-budget horror movie craze to pervert beloved intellectual property the instant their 95-year copyright protection lapses into the public domain. First, there’s whatever sadistic fates the filmmakers have in mind for the characters, from being impaled by a forklift to having their faces plunged into the propeller of the Staten Island Ferry. But the real violence — and the reason audiences presumably pay to see these IP parasites — is what’s done to the characters themselves, as there’s an illicit thrill in desecrating powerful brands, like Disney.

“Screamboat” isn’t the first slasher movie to spoof “Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 animated short that introduced a primitive black-and-white version of Mickey Mouse, but it’s a lot more fun than last year’s “The Mouse Trap,” a pathetic cash grab in which some guy...

Exclusive: Husslup, a venture-backed mobile app focused on connecting creatives to each other and to the companies that need to staff them, has launched a bimonthly series of table reads designed to promote scripts from emerging writers.

The first reading in the series was hosted by the company along with Tyra Banks’ Bankable Productions and actress and author Anjali Bhimani, whose recent credits include Ms. Marvel. The debut event featured comedy pilot The B Word from South Asian Canadian writer Sabrina Besla, which is exec produced by Banks and Hayley Lozitsky from Bankable as well as Bhimani. The more than 60 guests in attendance included executives from Fremantle, agents from UTA as well as talent managers, along with writer-producers from Euphoria, Grey’s Anatomy and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, according to a press release.

“There is no shortage of original voices telling amazing stories in Hollywood,” Husslup founder and CEO H Schuster said. “Through this new series,...