{"id":40084,"date":"2023-10-30T01:37:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T05:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=40084"},"modified":"2023-10-30T15:02:33","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T19:02:33","slug":"satans-little-helper-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/30\/satans-little-helper-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Satan\u2019s Little Helper (2004)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>For reasons I could never quite put my finger on, \u201cSatan\u2019s Little Helper\u201d has always evaded me. Since its release in 2004, I\u2019ve never been able to find time to sit down and watch it, but since its initial release, it\u2019s manage to garner a pretty respectable cult following. \u201cSatan\u2019s Little Helper\u201d is certainly one of the most batshit insane Halloween horror movies I\u2019ve ever seen, which is something that works for and against Jeff Lieberman\u2019s horror comedy. It\u2019s weird, and darkly comic, and over the top, and injects uncomfortable overtones of incest, and pedophilia, to boot. There were genuine moments that made me squirm, and it works to the detriment of the movie itself.<\/p>\n

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On the afternoon of Halloween, Douglas Whooly (Alexander Brickel) dons his costume in expectation of a fun-filled night. But, when he hears that his beloved sister, Jenna (Katheryn Winnick), has found herself a boyfriend, he throws a tantrum and flees the house. Douglas befriends a man in a devil costume and helps him decorate his lawn with fake corpses. Unfortunately for Douglas and his family, the corpses — much like the murders that will punctuate the evening to come — are all too real.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re supposed to be following and rooting for young Douglas, whose own sense of sociopathy is written as demented but charming in a way. He views his confrontation with Satan Man as something out of his video game, so he delights in causing destruction, even giggling with Satan Man completely violently eviscerates a stray cat. \u201cSatan\u2019s Little Helper\u201d almost, kind of seems self aware, in that it knows the tone it\u2019s aiming for, but most times it just misses. The only saving grace is Satan Man, a mysterious masked murderer whose entire mystique is left completely ambiguous until the very end. Is he a serial killer? Is he a demon? Is he the actual devil in disguise? Is he a manifestation of our worst fears and insecurities? Is he merely a harbinger of chaos?<\/p>\n

We\u2019re never really let in on what his whole mission statement is, but he does succeed in being a cunning and menacing villain. His modus operandi remains fuzzy until the very end, and his aura is only amplified by the very slick Satan mask and cowl that he dons through ninety percent of the movie. He works well off of the cast, the majority of who are at a twenty, when they should be at an eight. Every one on the cast chews as much scenery as possible, from Amanda Plummer, and Katheryn Winnick, right down to Alexander Brickel. To his credit, Brickel plays a slimy little monster well, and Whooly even at his most vulnerable is an obnoxious horror protagonist.<\/p>\n

\u201cSatan\u2019s Little Helper\u201d is aided by its embracing of the Halloween aesthetic, giving us a fun horror trickster and monster that never allows us to fully understand. It\u2019s not too much of a surprise that \u201cSatan\u2019s Little Helper\u201d is a mini-cult classic, as director Lieberman dives head first in to just pure absurdity and it works more times than it doesn\u2019t. It amounts to a decent Halloween treat, in the end. I hope we get to see Satan Man again someday.<\/p>\n