31 Days of Horror: Satan’s Little Helper

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 7, 2009

Satan’s Little Helper (2004)

Synopsis: When naive nerd Dougie meets Satan Man, his absolute favorite video game character ever, on Halloween, he just has to spend the day helping him out.  A case of mistaken identity leads to everyone believing this masked man to be a friend in a Halloween costume, while in actuality he’s spreading the joy of murder through the town.

Killer Scene: The best scene in the movie is undoubtedly when Satan Man pushes little Dougie, dressed as the Devil, around in a grocery cart, running down people in a parking lot.  His victims notably include a baby in a stroller and a blind man.  Darkly comedic, it’s everyman’s dream to just go wild with a shopping cart on a bunch of weaker people.

KillSheet

Violence: A lot of people die in Satan’s Little Helper, though many are of screen and most of what we do see is fairly tame, with one or two exceptions.  A woman is hanged, people are ran down, there are dead bodies, shootings, suffocation and a man catches a sharp object with his gut, which promptly leads to some of his insides becoming outsides.

Sex: Regrettably there is little nudity, but the sister, played by Katheryn Winnick, is sinfully hot and dressed sexily.  She even allows Satan Man, who she mistakenly believes to be her boyfriend, feel up her ample breasts in an oddly hot scene.  All the skulls are rewarded just because of how absolutely smoking hot this girl is.  Well, also there is a little thrown in for some nudity we do get – a woman in the shower, who then steps out of the shower, reveals some breast and some butt.  But the sister is totally hotter.

Scares: The film isn’t scary in the traditional horror sense, and really it isn’t “scary” at all, but it does make a point that could scare you, or old people like your parents.  Dougie is obsessed with his video game and idolizes a character from that game.  When someone is coincidentally dressed up as that character, Dougie follows him blindly and willfully, nay, gleefully participates in “make-believe” violence with him, which results in several people injured or dead.  Plenty of action takes place in the broad daylight on Halloween too, which is brazen.

Final Thoughts: This was a movie I bought on a whim because I liked the cover and I found myself really enjoying it.  It is definitely low budget, but makes that fact work for it.  Dougie is played perfectly as the naive chubby kid and Satan Man comes across as equal parts Freddy (with SM’s constant smirk and jackass behavior) and Jason or another slasher (with his joy of murder!).  The average viewer might find the film laughable or uninteresting, but for those that have seen plenty of horror movies in the past, this movie gives you a wink and a nudge, being self-aware without venturing too far into parody.  A little known film that definitely deserves a chance.

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