Satan's Little Helper (2004)
Oct 1, 2023 18:27:43 GMT
masterofallgoons, Captain Spencer, and 1 more like this
Post by wmcclain on Oct 1, 2023 18:27:43 GMT
Satan's Little Helper (2004), written, produced and directed by Jeff Lieberman.
After playing a video game where he gets points for helping Satan execute all sorts of gruesome kills, a boy attaches himself to a psycho serial killer in a devil costume and becomes his helper. The kid thinks Satan is real but the kills are fake. He may be a bit dim-witted.
It's a gruesome, darkly comic spoof on slasher films. Guts and a cat smooshed to write in blood on a wall. Drano in the punch bowl.
It is also sort of one-joke: that horrible crimes can be committed in broad daylight on Halloween when people are staging funny yard murders anyway, and mistaken identities are easy when everyone is in costume.
Amanda Plummer is the mom, ditsy and oblivious to the immediate presence of evil, but so is everyone else.
Katheryn Winnick is the kid's big sister. She always caught my eye even in her early work and is 27 here, playing college age. At first she doesn't like the costume she calls "medieval slut" but eventually warms up to it when admiring herself in the mirror. It looks like a harem outfit to me.
From her profile and especially that nose I would have thought her ancestors came from the same Danish village as Ingrid Pitt and Scarlett Johansson, but the wikipedia says her people are from Ukraine:
Satan-man never speaks and is a funny all-around psycho. He plays along with the kid's game, gropes his sister and sniffs panties from the laundry basket, as well as doing abundant bloody murders.
Brief, happily gratuitous nudity by Melisa McGregor, later a film composer.
Available on a good-looking Blu-ray from Synapse. Made with hidef video cameras, the image looks nicely film-like to me.
The director's commentary track is mostly production details. He is fascinated by the edits of scenes combined from different times and places. The digital format made color grading to match the autumn season much easier.
He also speaks of the actors:
After playing a video game where he gets points for helping Satan execute all sorts of gruesome kills, a boy attaches himself to a psycho serial killer in a devil costume and becomes his helper. The kid thinks Satan is real but the kills are fake. He may be a bit dim-witted.
It's a gruesome, darkly comic spoof on slasher films. Guts and a cat smooshed to write in blood on a wall. Drano in the punch bowl.
It is also sort of one-joke: that horrible crimes can be committed in broad daylight on Halloween when people are staging funny yard murders anyway, and mistaken identities are easy when everyone is in costume.
Amanda Plummer is the mom, ditsy and oblivious to the immediate presence of evil, but so is everyone else.
Katheryn Winnick is the kid's big sister. She always caught my eye even in her early work and is 27 here, playing college age. At first she doesn't like the costume she calls "medieval slut" but eventually warms up to it when admiring herself in the mirror. It looks like a harem outfit to me.
From her profile and especially that nose I would have thought her ancestors came from the same Danish village as Ingrid Pitt and Scarlett Johansson, but the wikipedia says her people are from Ukraine:
Satan-man never speaks and is a funny all-around psycho. He plays along with the kid's game, gropes his sister and sniffs panties from the laundry basket, as well as doing abundant bloody murders.
Brief, happily gratuitous nudity by Melisa McGregor, later a film composer.
Available on a good-looking Blu-ray from Synapse. Made with hidef video cameras, the image looks nicely film-like to me.
The director's commentary track is mostly production details. He is fascinated by the edits of scenes combined from different times and places. The digital format made color grading to match the autumn season much easier.
He also speaks of the actors:
- Amanda Plummer was "spontaneous", meaning she never gave the same take twice. This was usually difficult for the director, but sometimes produced brilliant results.
- When Satan-man was pretending to be her boyfriend, Katheryn Winnick complained that his "angle of attack" when cupping her boobs was wrong and asked the director to demonstrate the proper technique. He: "Tough job but it had to be done".
- She has a karate black belt.