FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER
Horrifically funny, Satan’s Little Helper is a precautionary horror
story about what happens when you talk to strangers. Dougie (Brickel) is all set for Halloween, and his stoner mom (Plummer) has made
him a costume of Satan’s Little Helper, a character from his favorite video
game. When his sister Jenna (Winnick) brings home a new boyfriend
from college, Dougie, jealous and feeling pushed aside, sets out to
trick-or-treat on his own. He stumbles upon a man dressed as the devil
seemingly decorating porches with mangled corpses. Dougie takes
the bodies to be just decorations. Having found his master, he stays with the
silent man, and Satan has found the perfect accomplice to do his dirty work.
As the town is turned into bedlam, scenes are full of blood and gore with
edge-of-your-seat suspense. Slowly but surely, Dougie watches his entire life
turn into a bloodbath before he realizes it’s not like a video game, and he
has made a horrible mistake. Meanwhile, the costumed villain is impossible to
catch as he changes identities, one time tenderly ironic as Jesus, which makes
him even more frightening. We find ourselves trying desperately to warn Dougie
of his stupidity before it’s too late, and then, in good keeping with the
genre, it is too late. This tension only accentuates the suspense. The film is
also a kind of social satire and keeps us laughing throughout in its portrayal
of Dougie’s suburban family, especially in the comic relief of Amanda Plummer.
In his director’s statement Jeff Lieberman writes, “I love to have an audience
screaming, but I want to have them laughing as well,” and in this he succeeds. Lisette Johnson
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