Flick Picks 9: Satan's Little Helper

This mask will haunt your dreams.

Hello, Geek Streakers! Boog here again, and this time, I've noticed a rather large hole in my reviewing stable. I have yet to review any kind of horror film. Plus I wanted to do one I'd never seen before as well, to give a 'fresh look' review, so to speak. So, I went shopping sround, and found a plethora of B-movie awful ot subject myself to. Case in point, 2004 indie 'horror comedy' called.......
Satan's Little Helper.SPOILERS!
This film is weird to a degree I didn't think was possible. First, yeah it's an indie film, so no real budget in sight here. A very little bit of gore, some above average music, and a creepy bad guy, that's about it.
So, let's really get into it here. First, the casting, for the most part, is awful. the two bright spots are Amanda Plummer, and Kathryn Winnick. Amanda Plummer plays the mother of the family unit at the center of this tale, and she does well enough. As a strong female character actor, she's been everywhere across film for the past 20+ years, but for the life of me the only performance I can remember of hers is Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction.

Because gun-toting thieves make great moms.

Katheryn Winnick plays arguably the lead, and she's hot enough to help this B-grade schlock be watchable, and then go back to her career of playing background characters in movies, with the occasional TV guest slot. But really, here's the story. Dad buys a video game for his son, called, wait for it, Satan's Little Helper. Do I really need to list how this can never happen? Let's see:
1- a video game sold in the States with Satan in the title? Nope.
2- The 'game' is piss poor graphics and programming, but that's a budget woe, so it gets a pass for now.
3- The game is about helping Satan, let me say that again, HELPING SATAN, to kill everyone in sight in gruesome ways, including bowel dismemberment and vehicular manslaughter. Was Dad just too stoned off his to look at the damn game box? Whatever. The point is, this boy abso-freakin-lutely LOVES this game, to the point of asking his mother if Satan exists, for the sole purpose of hoping he can meet him and become his helper. This child is 9, maybe 10, and in third grade. does who can do the math to know he's been held back at LEAST once, take a shot.

Get used to this face, you'll want to punch it later.

So, the kid, who obviously already has problems distinguishing fantasy from reality, gets a major dose of what-the-hell by running into a serial killer, dressed as Satan. Whom he then befriends, and runs around town with. Really? You want to make an independent horror film, something that should make money with it's eyes closed, and you're going to give it the plot of anti-video game after school special? *Sigh* Alright, well, the kid, who is named Dougie, is played by Alexander Brickel. Don't bother to remember that, he did one other film that year, and nothing else. ever. I'll consider that a good thing and move on, as his voice has that sickly sweet quality that makes you want to punch him in the face. Also his character is downright functionally retarded, or should be. Seriously, the villain tricks this kid into going with him or helping him THREE times. There's dumb, and there's why the hell haven't you gotten a Darwin Award yet? Basically, it's rather formulaic after that. Although there are some points worth mentioning.

Mom did some things she wasn't too proud of, dear...

First, like any other story or piece involving video games, and whether or not they affect children, the blame on this tale falls squarely on the shoulder of the kids family. It's a explanation from Mom that has him believing that Satan is real, and weird bits from his sister, Jenna (Katheryn Winnick), and her boyfriend, Alex (Stephen Graham) (No, not that one) that has him really going along with this Satan dude like it was a game. The kid only realizes the truth when he sees his dad gutted in front of him. And I'm sorry, if Mom had just said 'Satan's not real honey, he's a myth, like vampires and werewolves', then most likely most of the events of the film wouldn't have happened.

This picture does more than my lines do.

The face of blandness.

But I digress. I've talked about the mom, son and sister, so now let's round out my impression with the rest of the main cast. there's the dad, who has about six lines before he's stabbed to death, yay pointless killing. the boyfriend, is just terrible. He gets the most plot twists centered around him too. He gets beaten to death, except not, thinks the killer is his father, except it isn't, then gets mistaken for the killer, and gets killed himself. And none of it really grabs you.

Want some candy? How about I take your spleen?

Seriously, the story here is piss poor, and it wants to be funny, but there is really only one even slightly funny sight gag involving a dead woman's corpse, but as I was typing that I realized how creepy that sounds so let's forget that, shall we? The editing is awful as well, but when you have 3 Assistant Directors giving orders to two Photography Directors across 2 units filming in three cities, I guess some jump cuts can't be helped. They the film look amateur, however, instead of just low-budget. The make-up and effects were okay, decent blood, what little gore they showed was passable for a film like this. The high point of the make up and effects is the killer's Satan Mask. Seriously creepy, especially since he doesn't speak. Not a word from the Price of Darkness this time around. The kid is really effing stupid so he justifies a reason for this immediately, and I just want to punch him the face. I haven't seen a character this willingly obtuse, even a child, ever. The highest point of stupidity for me, has to be the shopping scene.

'So that's why I repeated Kindergarten. Twice"

Yes, there's a shopping scene. Where the killer grabs a bunch of knives, packing tape, sellotape, various other pointy objects, and the kid justifies as part of the game, and says nothing because he gets candy. They worst part of this is that a bagboy notices that Satan doesn't pay for the items and confronts them behind the store. Where the killer proceed to stab the man in the belly, and throw into a dumpster. With the kid watching. And the kid doesn't bat an eye. Then they go on a spree of assaults and murder, including hanging an old lady out her front window. I really don't get how no one caught on before now. Oh wait, it's because the plot told them not too. There,s some other bits here and there, including four policemen dying offscreen, crap plot points with the boyfriend, and a couple of red herrings in possible identities of the killer, one being a know arsonist(the police station is set on fire offscreen), and another being Alex's dad. Here is the point where it all comes to a head for me, because the killer never talks, and we never see his face.

This is the face you never see.

I know it's supposed to be mysterious and lend him a primal, force of nature quality. It works for a lot of classic and contemporary horror villains. Jason, Micheal Myers, The Creeper, none of them talk, and it adds to their general persona of psycho killer. You can't talk to them, can't reason with them, they want to kill you, or at least eat part of you, and won't stop until they are satisfied. Here, it comes off kind lazy, considering the film's myriad other problems. At best, the killer is just opportunistic and plays along with the boy to get access to the family, but here is my biggest complaint. Why? Throughout the film, no reason or explanation is given as to why this particular person is killing people, why he wears the mask, and why he does it on Halloween. Every other horror film I can think that I have seen, even going as far back as Dementia 13, which was from sometime in the 60s, there was at least a token explanation as to why this particular group of teenagers was getting bumped off. Maybe there was an indian burial ground, maybe the killer's a real momma's boy, maybe he's a zombie who get resurrected though a bolt of lightning and a weathervane. Whatever the explanation, threadbare it may be, it is necessary to set up the following action and murderous mayhem. Having a random guy kill randomly is kinda boring. Having a guy in a devil costume befriend a child to simultaneously recapture youth lost to an abusive father, and prove himself a better man by teaching the young child how to kill? That's gripping entertainment. So, in closing, I give this film the same gesture that the film itself give its audience at one point:

Stay away from this one. Now to try and find some better horror movies....