Satans Little Helper review
horror movies&stuff
[Satans Little Helper]
Plot:A naïve young boy uknowingly becomes the pawn of a serial killer.
Cast:
Katheryn Winnick,
Alexander Brickel,
Amanda Plummer,
Stephen Graham,
Joshua Annex,
Dan Ziskie,
Wass M. Stevens,
Melisa McGregor.
My Thoughts:Finally something unique comes out of the slasher sub-genre for a change.
Review:"Satans Little Helper" is quite the interesting B movie.The film deals with a young boy named Douglas whos obsessed with the satan character in his computer game, aptly titled "Satans Little Helper".This sends Douglas off on Halloween to find Satan. It just so happens that theres a creepy character in a devil mask and black trenchcoat going around killing people in the neighborhood.Douglas crosses paths with this person and quickly grows attached to him.Thus mayhem ensues. Of course you could nitpick at the fact that in what seems to be a pretty large neighborhood,and on Halloween of all times,where alot of people would be on the streets,that someone would notice a guy in such an attention getting (you have to see the film to see how freaky looking the killers costume is) get up dragging bodies around and putting them on display on their porches.But this movie has so much creativity and unique qualities about it,that those things seem like minor gripes when it's all said and done."Satans Little Helper" isn't exactly an extremely bloody gorefest of a horror film, but it does a great job of using blood when need be. Meaning that in those really brutal scenes, it uses just enough blood to make it believeable.The killer in this movie is a pretty awesome character himself.Along with the freaky looking costume,he also doesn't speak, and has a mischievous yet extremely dangerous persona about him.The relationship between him and Douglas takes on the form of a kid meeting his childhood hero or idol if you will.Douglas himself is a wierd kid whos oddly enough in love with his older sister Jenna played by Katheryn Winnick,and unhealthily obsessed with the satan character from his video game,and being his helper. Douglas sees this masked man as Satan and thus helps him go around the neighborhood commiting murder after murder as well as teaming up to do a bit of terrorizing of innocent civilians.The kills are pretty funny yet convincing at the same time,one of which takes place with an elderly woman.This movie does a good job of blending twisted black humor,with a strong horror element. It keeps both nicely balanced off in the movie thus the viewer never gets the feeling that the film is trying to be too funny.There are alot of scenes that the viewer will find him or herself laughing at the hilarious cruelty of it all.What I liked most about the film was that it took the slasher subgenre and did something totally different with it. It's really rare when a good slasher film comes along because so many films have copied one another and continue to copy one another. This movie doesn't go by the book,or try to set up some cheap and predictable scare scenes,or toss in the whodunit element. Were given a unique story which is just set in motion for us to watch the chaos ensue without a huge cast or group of potential suspects. A studio head would never release a movie like this into theaters because he or shes first reaction to it would be, it's so unorthodox that it would turn the audience off to it. But in this films case, being unorthodox and using a really serious plot device of kids not being able to separate fantasy from reality until it's too late and the damage that it can do to a family and people in general is what made it work. It's a shame that this didn't go to theaters. I guess nowadays no matter how good your movie is,without a huge studio to finance it, it's direct-to-video or nothing."SLH" is a gem of a B movie, I'd recommend it to any hardcore horror movie fan.
Pros:The killer and the little boy who looks up to him were both very interesting characters to watch in this movie. It was also interesting to watch how as things got more and more serious, how the characters reacted and responded. Douglas and Jenna in particular.This is also one of the few B-movies where I think the entire cast did a fantastic job,and actually looked like they wanted to be in this film and were having a good time working on it.I also liked the unorthodox yet unqiue plot, and the kills were pretty cool. Also nice use of black humor, and I liked the way the film blended the dark and serious aspects of the movie in with it.
Cons:There are alot of scenes that come off as unbelievable. Not because of the kills,but some of the characters in this movie were way too niave for adult characters. As I stated above in the interview, I doubt a person could commit murders in peoples doorways on Halloween and not be noticed.Another situation where the viewer has to suspend reality for a bit.Also the disappearing reappearing act the killer pulls near the end is cool the first time but is quickly overused to cover up a bit of lazy writing.Lastly I highly doubt that when a towns entire police force is murdered,the first thing most of the towns people think of is to loot,vandalize,and steal stuff.I live in New York so I'm no expert on smalltown life or anything,but this sort of reaction to this kind of situation seems highly unlikely to happen anywhere except in the twilight zone.
Overall:Great B movie, if you suspend reality here and there in a few scenes, and just go with the flow. Definitely give it a rent when it hits DVD on October 4th.
