There’s a fine line between campy fun and cinematic disaster, and Shiver Me Timbers, the feature debut from writer-director Paul Stephen Mann, cannonballs into the latter without much grace. Billed as a gory, comedic reimagining of Popeye with a horror twist, this film misses nearly every mark—hard.
Set in 1986 California during the arrival of Halley’s Comet, the plot follows Olive Oyl, her brother Castor, and a group of forgettable friends on a camping trip that goes sideways when a meteor fragment lands in the pipe of a local fisherman. That fisherman? Popeye—now mutated into a roided-out, murderous sailor on a bloody rampage. The setup has potential for absurd, self-aware fun, but the film fails to deliver anything but forced nostalgia, baffling creative choices, and a parade of stock footage.
Tony Greer, cast as Popeye, is wildly miscast, delivering one-liners lifted from the original cartoon with zero charm or timing. Worse yet, the rest of the cast blends into a sea of bad line readings and awkward blocking, made all the more jarring by editing that often lets the score blare over key dialogue. The film tries to skate by on references to better movies and pop culture catchphrases, but these only highlight how little originality or cohesion it brings to the table.
And while Popeye’s transformation should be a showstopper, the CGI is straight out of a low-tier AI-generated Facebook ad. The much-touted “mutated Popeye” is more laughable than terrifying—think poorly rendered Shrek dipped in spinach juice. Speaking of spinach: its complete absence from the plot feels like a bizarre oversight in a film otherwise trying so hard to wink at its source material.
Scenes often go nowhere, comedy bits drag on far past their expiration date, and the film relies on pure coincidence to propel its lazy script. There’s a sex scene that at least tries to be funny before the inevitable kill, but even that feels like a half-hearted attempt at exploitation. The rest of the kills? Uninspired, poorly executed, and lacking the creativity this subgenre demands.
Shiver Me Timbers is what happens when a movie tries to ride the coattails of cult camp without understanding why those films work. It’s not scary, it’s not clever, and worst of all—it’s not fun. There’s no heart, no spinach-fueled strength, and no reason to recommend this one unless you’re looking for a cautionary tale in IP horror misfires.
Jessie Hobson