Review of Satan's Little Helper (2005) by Jason B — 28 Oct 2011

Not bad! Creepy concept that would have been genuinely scary if they had played it straight, but instead decided to have ironic fun with it. Storywise, it's a cut above (pun) the usual and since it's set on Halloween, points for actually looking like autumn (seems like most Halloween movies I see have bright green grass and trees).

I like the director's past efforts and Amanda Plummer is always...erm...memorable. Some of the iffier moments involve the actors, especially the highly annoying child who carries the movie on his shoulders.

..in a way he's perfect for what they were doing (he reminded me a lot of Peter Billingsley in A Christmas Story) but the character is SO dumb, I had to start imagining that the he was a little...slow, in order to make sense of his motivations.

But still, I had fun with this, it crossed into politically incorrect territory from time to time (which I loved) and it was surprisingly character oriented. By far the worst aspect is the fake videogame the kid loves to play (which actually looks like the crude hand drawn animation it is).