It’s no longer fashionable to have cartoon characters as fun-loving heroes who grotesquely thrash persistent villains. As more and more traditional characters from the last century enter the public domain, a trend is intensifying that turns former heroes into today’s horror outcasts. Following the murderous Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse, Popeye the Sailor Man is also embarking on a path as a drastic killer in the trailer for Popeye the Slayer Man. Contaminated spinach in a long-closed factory has spawned a human monster whose bulging forearms ensure a reliable technique for cracking inquisitive teenage heads.
Created in the 1930s by Max Fleischer, Popeye instilled unpopular spinach habits in the last generation. Especially the animated series from the sixties, in which the sailor with the protruding chin and tattooed anchor protects the lovely Olive Oyl from the ruddy Bluto, is iconic in many parts of the world. The bold feature film attempt by renowned director Robert Altman with Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall is unfortunately a much more exclusive cult, their Popeye from 1980 was a heavy flop.
Yet, even five years ago, no one would have guessed that a new film version would go the way of a slasher horror. This trend only recently started with Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey from 2023, which was quickly followed by another sequel about animal killers from the pen of A. A. Milne. Mickey Mouse wallowed in foreign blood in the theatrical release Mouse Trap and will pick up the knife again next year in Screamboat, in direct reference to the mouse’s first short appearance in the 1928 cartoon Steamboat Willie. The Grinch has also murdered in the horror The Mean One, and a similar character reversal awaits Pinocchio or Bambi – many of these modern-day tyrants will then unite in a parody of the Avengers under the name Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble.
Brutal Popeye stands apart from this thematic knot, and his director Robert Michael Ryan has prepared a traditional plot about a mysterious abandoned place, through which tales of a single and very inhospitable host pass all too realistically. A group of young friends sneaks into a closed spinach factory to document the legend of a being nicknamed Sailor Man. Although an old-timer warns them in the trailer that the tales of a bone-breaking monster are based on truth, the reckless youth run straight into the lion’s den.
And it will be pretty rough in it, because the absence of any originality is compensated by practical gore effects. It’s hard to say how much crushing lines like “spinach contamination” will manifest into a blackly humorous nature, without which these projects could hardly justify their existence. But the sample relies more on pure B-movie horror, which, following the example of the current phenomenon Terrifier, does not skimp on artificial blood and in which people get away very graphically and cruelly. Scalping, broken limbs and crushed heads are the work of special effects artist R. J. Young, who preferred exclusively old-fashioned solutions. At least in that, Popeye the Slayer Man should please genre fans in the course of next year, even if it simultaneously earns automatic contempt for such a fallen rape of the classic. But that is already becoming a separate film category.