13 h. ago Screamboat review – rodent IP horror sends Mickey Mouse on a ferry rampage

A genetically modified mouse goes on the rampage in bloody Disney pastiche that offers Sharknado-level performances and kill scenes hindered by poor lightingHere’s another draining bout of horror opportunism, spawned in this instance by the copyright expiring on Disney’s Steamboat Willie, the 1928 landmark animation that launched Mickey Mouse into the world. Scurrying on to screens months behind the similarly motivated The Mouse Trap, Steven LaMorte’s bloody pastiche opens with a quote coyly ascribed to “Walt D” before plodding mirthlessly in the pawprints of those recent Winnie-the-Pooh carve-ups, demonstrating no greater brio, invention or wit. Its mock Mickey is a genetically modified super-violent pipsqueak (played by Terrifier breakout star David Howard Thornton, in mangy rodent costume), let loose from the sewers by blundering engineers; rather than the jaunty steamboat his predecessor commandeered, he wreaks murderous havoc on a grimy approximation of the Staten Island ferry,...

Events

4 d. ago People gave Indian restaurant rave reviews. They didn't know about the mouse droppings everywhere

There was a serious risk to customer health from the mouse infestation riddling the restaurant

Politics

4 d. ago Inside mouse infested Cardiff restaurant where people gave rave reviews without knowing the truth

The judge said there was a serious risk to customer health

Politics

2 w. ago ‘They shouldn’t have to fight alone’: the families on the frontline of the Navajo Nation missing people crisis – photo essay

The disproportionate violence against Indigenous people is deeply felt on and around the reservation, where families must become their own investigators. Words and photography by Wayan BarreOn a cold January evening in 2021, Joey Apachee, a Navajo father of two, set out to meet a friend near the water tower in Steamboat, Arizona. Hours later, he was found beaten to death. However, despite a confession from a suspect, no trial has taken place. Joey’s father Jesse Apachee, a retired police officer, says the family feels abandoned by the Navajo Nation’s justice system.Indigenous people experience violence at alarmingly high rates. According to the Urban Indian Health Institute, in some parts of the US, Indigenous women are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than the national average. Additionally, 10,123 Native American people were recorded as missing in 2022, though the real tally is probably higher due to inconsistencies in reporting and data collection. In recent years the crisis ha...

Events

3 w. ago Reviving the woolly mammoth isn’t just unethical. It’s impossible | Adam Rutherford

At a time when US scientists are under attack from their own government, the illiteracy around these elephantine fantasies is dangerousYou will never ever see a living woolly mammoth. While this is an obvious truth to most geneticists, zoologists and mammoth experts, the endless promises that you might get to meet an extant version of this very-much extinct elephantid apparently necessitate me typing it.The latest on the conveyor belt of mammoth resurrection stories came this week in the form of a slightly hairy mouse. Colossal Biosciences, the US company behind the “woolly mouse” and ensuing media frenzy, published a non-peer-reviewed paper in which it has genetically engineered a mouse to express a gene that relates to mammoth hair, resulting in a mouse with slightly longer hair than normal.Dr Adam Rutherford is a lecturer in genetics at UCL and the author of How to Argue With a Racist Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Indian rock sensations Bloodywood: ‘What’s more metal than standing up for people you love?’

The trio’s playful mix of heft and traditional instrumentation sent them viral. But they’re also confronting racism and rape culture, and struggling in a Bollywood-dominated music industry‘We’re serving a really nice dish called metal tikka masala,” jokes Bloodywood guitarist Jayant Bhadula. “It’s metal but with so many spices that it’ll overwhelm your senses. You will headbang and you will end up dancing with us.”This is the tongue-in-cheek mission statement of one of metal’s most original bands. Formed in 2016, Bloodywood flavour the conventions of nu-metal with traditional Indian instruments, meaning their songs are as likely to feature crunching riffs as they are the flute or the dhol. The trio – bulked out to a six-piece on stage – became viral sensations covering pop songs and alternative hits on YouTube before writing original material. From there, their fortunes soared. Their first ever gig was at German metal festival Wacken Open Air in 2019. Four years later they drew a ma...

Events