Horror films based on fairy tales, nursery rhymes and children’s stories are enjoying something of a renaissance at present. Movies like Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey are able to appropriate characters and settings from a fully formed fictional world. The producers of Three Blind Mice have only a six-line stanza to work with. That might be quite challenging if they were interested in bringing that short story to the screen. But they’re not. Which means that you’ll await the arrival of a knife-wielding farmer’s wife in vain.
Addict-in-denial Abi is forced to join her family on a rural retreat. All attention is focused on getting Abi clean, which means that the arrival of three grotesque creatures initially goes unnoticed. Part human, part vicious vermin, these animalistic killers cannot see but hunt their prey by sound and smell. As the night unfolds, more of Abi’s nearest and dearest succumb to the rapacious rodents, and there’s every chance that no one will escape the deadly mouse trap.
The design of the murderous mice’s latex masks and the physicality of the three actors underneath their mouse attire are the film’s selling points. The ‘meeces’ who tear people into pieces do make good baddies. There’s no shortage of gushing blood, either. But writer David Malcolm and director Pierre B fail to build in anything like a coherent mythology. Swarms of CGI “mini mice” do the story no favours, nor does the inclusion of a single refrain of the rhyme at the film’s midpoint. Kudos to May Kelly (Abi), who screams herself hoarse as her character’s miseries multiply. But her commitment is not enough to stop Three Blind Mice from feeling pretty cheesy.
THREE BLIND MICE is released on streaming platforms and DVD in the US on October 17th, 2023
