Shiver Me Timbers 2 Unites Popeye, Tarzan, and Betty Boop in a Horror Comedy Crossover
Tarzan and Betty Boop swing into Shiver Me Timbers 2, teaming with Popeye and Olive Oyl as the horror-comedy sequel corrals even more public domain icons.
Horror is having a moment with childhood icons, and it just keeps getting stranger. We’ve already seen the trend hit Pooh, Mickey, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Bambi, Pinocchio, Three Blind Mice, and Goldilocks. Now Popeye is not only in the mix, he’s getting a sequel that ropes in Tarzan and Betty Boop. Yes, really.
Quick refresher: what was Shiver Me Timbers?
On April 1, Alpake Entertainment teamed with Gravitas Ventures and dropped a slasher comedy called Shiver Me Timbers. April Fools timing made it sound like a gag. It wasn’t. It’s a real movie that did well enough to earn a follow-up.
The first film is set in Northern California in the summer of 1986. Olive Oyl heads into the woods with her movie-nerd friends and her brother Castor to catch the Halley’s Comet meteor shower. One of those meteors hits Popeye and turns him into an unstoppable slasher. It’s a full-on 80s throwback with the references, the jokes, and the gore to match.
So what’s the sequel?
Alpake is about to launch an IndieGogo campaign for Shiver Me Timbers 2: Chainsaws Are for Children. This time, Popeye isn’t the only public domain legend in the room. Tarzan and Betty Boop are along for the ride.
Plot setup
We pick up a few weeks after the first movie. Popeye washes up in New York and starts carving through Little Italy’s mob ranks. Olive Oyl shows up in the city with a new upgrade: a bionic, super-charged hand, and she wants revenge for her brother. Her hunt leads to a mafia boss’s nightclub, where she unexpectedly clicks with the headliner: a sultry singer named Betty Boop.
Meanwhile, Father Flannigan and Sister Mary bring Don Sangue some big news: the mobster’s son, who vanished as a kid during a jungle vacation, has finally turned up as an adult. Rehabilitation does not go as planned. He bolts, tackles Popeye, takes a puff from the sailor’s signature pipe, and transforms into a feral beast-man. He and Popeye team up. Now it’s Olive and Betty, with some reluctant help from the mob, versus a monstrous duo.
How wild are they going?
'Twice as crazy, twice as wild, and way more over the top.'
That’s the promise from the team, and they back it up with specifics:
- Three times as many kills, with more blood and more gore.
- An 'outrageous finale' staged in a mob nightclub, pitched like the chaos of Scarface or Goodfellas if two Toxic Avengers crashed the party.
- Kills they describe as twice as bloody and twice as brutal: ripped in half, disemboweled, faces torn off.
- Olive and Betty fighting to hold the line in the middle of the mayhem.
- New contraptions, big practical gags, and heavy special effects makeup, plus stunts, blood, and a lot of extras.
- Nerdy detail: Olive’s giant buzzsaw, Bernice, is returning at double the size.
Shiver Me Timbers 2: Chainsaws Are for Children is gearing up its crowdfunding push soon. If you’ve ever wanted to see Popeye, Tarzan, Betty Boop, and Olive Oyl wade through full-on splatter, this is that movie. You in?