Satan's Little Helper
Encyclopedia
Satan's Little Helper is a low-budget black comedy
/horror film
directed by Jeff Lieberman. It was filmed with HD cameras around New York City, USA in 2003 and premiered at film festivals in 2004. It had a direct-to-DVD release on October 4, 2005.
. Dougie and his mother go to pick up Dougie's sister Jenna, who has been away at college studying acting, but is coming home to spend Halloween with her brother. Dougie is excited to see his sister, declaring to his mother he wants to marry her. The reunion between the two turns sour when Dougie finds out she has brought her boyfriend, Alex. She introduces him as a fellow actor and another native of their town, the two of them meeting on the trip home, since Alex attended a different high school. Dougie treats Alex with scorn, and upon arriving home, angrily turns on Jenna before he runs off.
Dougie wanders around the neighborhood and finds a man - dressed in a cheap costume with a horned mask - carrying a dead woman out of a house. Dougie believes the woman to be an impressively realistic dummy, and watches in awe as the man fusses with the body's position on the front porch. When the man finally goes on his way, Dougie follows. When he sees the man arranging another dead body on a lawn as if it were a decoration, Dougie goes up to him, naively believes the man is Satan, which he accepts. While Dougie is with Satan, their mother convinces Jenna to try on the mother's costume from last year. Jenna refuses to wear her mother's "renaissance slut" outfit, but her mother persists. When she finally gives in, she's surprised and impressed by how sexy she looks in it, and tries on a british accent and bolder personality to go with the costume, which she reprises a few times throughout the film. Alex decides to bond with Dougie by dressing as Satan for Halloween, leaving with Dougie to get a costume. While Jenna and her mother watch them go, her mother scolds her for biting her nails, which Jenna brushes off. She tells her mother she can't wait to see what Alex is like when he comes back, claiming he's an excellent actor.
Dougie and Satan knock out Alex by setting him up for an ambush, so they can bond with each other. Dougie brings Satan home, whom everyone believes to be Alex. After meeting his seductive sister Jenna, Satan is obviously taken with her sexy appearance and immediately seizes her breasts and begins touching her body, to which Jenna is flattered by, but believes is just Alex playing the part of his costume. She coyly leads him up to her room, where she initially enjoys his attentions. However, he refuses to speak, and when she attempts to remove his mask to kiss him, he responds violently. She decides it's a part of his character and ignores it, but when she has had enough fondling and wants to stop, he begins choking her. Dougie, not understanding the sexual interest Satan has taken in his sister, unknowingly saves her when he barges into her room to see the two. Satan stops to avoid upsetting Dougie, and his sister decides to play the situation off as Alex being too into his role.
When Satan and Dougie leave to get Halloween candy, they instead steal tools needed to murder, and then attack and kill several people, including Alex's dad, which Dougie believes is merely part of a game. On the way home, they engage in a killing spree involving a grocery cart. While walking through a cemetery, the police accost them, and Satan tells Dougie to run home while he murders the police. We soon find out that all the police on the island community are now dead. Dougie returns home to wait for his master. When Dougie tells Jenna about what they've done, she begins to think that Alex is pushing the game too far. She waits for Alex (who she still thinks is the man in the Satan costume) to come home.
After he arrives, his new personality starts to frighten her, she realizes he is not wearing the right shoes - that he isn't Alex. When Jenna tries to tell her mother it's not Alex, she dismisses it and just thinks the two are taking their acting too seriously. Dougie's father comes home, and despite Jenna's attempts to stop him, he ventures upstairs and is brutally killed in front of the rest of the family. Dougie is finally horrified by what he's seeing, realizing it's real and not a game, and flees when his mother tells him to. While the killer menaces her mother, Jenna tries to call the police, but there's no one to answer. He kidnaps their mother, and as Jenna tries to follow, Alex startles her. They both go after the killer, who they believe is a boy they saw on the news earlier, Billy. He was arrested a year ago for Halloween arson. Because the killer knows what they both look like, they break into a Halloween store to steal new costumes as disguises, so they can get close enough to stop him.
The killer takes the mother to a Halloween party. Everyone assumes the tape wrapped all over her body and mouth is part of her costume, and believes the killer is her husband in costume. Despite her attempts to escape and signal for help, no one intervenes, in fact, they all find the her 'costume' hilarious. The killer poses for pictures, grabs other women's breasts (to their amusement, thinking this part of his act) and when no one except the mother is looking, pours deadly chemicals into the punch.
At home Dougie is in terror of the doorbell, while the town begins to riot, due to no police. He resentfully pulls off pieces of his Halloween costume. He prays to God for help, while Jenna and Alex try to get close to the killer. Unfortunately, in the manner which Jenna realizes the killer wasn't Alex, so too is Jenna recognizes by her pink sparkly heels. He tauntingly lifts a final piece of tape and wraps it over her mother's nose, then pushes her deeper into the crowd. The rest of the crowd fails to grasp the peril, pushing the staggering woman from one person to another, laughingly picking her up when she falls. When Jenna reaches her, she realizes she can't get under the tape, due to her lack of nails. Right before her mother is lost, she manages to pull off the tape. Alex follows and confronts the killer, who somehow leads him to believe he is Alex's father. He takes Alex's gun, shoots his own hand, and gives it back to Alex before walking away. Jenna and Alex go to Alex's house, where they see 'Satan' is standing outside. After he is shot and falls down, they unmask him to reveal Alex's father. Jenna leaves to pick up her family, telling Alex not to blame himself for shooting him.
At the house Dougie believes his prayers are answered when he opens the door to reveal 'God' - in a Jesus costume. Dougie is convinced to follow him, believing that like 'Satan', 'God' doesn't talk, and that because he's bleeding 'real blood' from his hand, he must really be God. Jenna finds Dougie, who tells her about God and the blood. She brings him home, and upon questioning Dougie, realizes that Alex's father died earlier and 'God' is 'Satan'. Their mother arrives, and Jenna remembers Alex thinks the killer is dead, and tries to call and warn him, too late. He's dragged off by the killer. Jenna wants to go find him, but is held back by her family. When they hear a noise in the basement, they go investigate, armed. When they see the Jesus costume, they violently attack it, only discovering after that it's Alex they've killed instead. Upstairs, Dougie spots a rescue helicopter, and tries to use a police car radio to ask for help. When a police officer steps up, Dougie believes he came because of his message, and the family lets him inside. While the rest of them go deeper into the house, the officer steps back and spray paints a 6 beneath their home address - 66 - and we can clearly see he's wearing a mask. The movie ends in a cliffhanger
. When the screen goes black, before the credits roll, Jenna asks, "Mom? Why won't he say anything?" Dougie answers, "He's afraid Satan will hear him."
.
Scoopy.com said about the movie: "If anyone ever gets to see this flick, it could become a cult classic, even a franchise. It is filmed in glorious, bright, saturated colors to give it an ironically cheerful look like the beginning of Blue Velvet, and it looks just about as good as a B-movie is ever going to look. It has its scary moments, some mild gore, some bare breasts, some hot sweaty bawls and a lot of humor minus the laughs. Although Halloween clones are not normally among my favorite types of movies, I enjoyed the film because it is very heavy on the morbid humor, allowing it to exist simultaneously as 80s slasher fare and a parody of same. It isn't as serious as Halloween or as silly as Scary Movie, but strikes a workable balance between them."
The movie shows an exceptional masterpiece played throughout the Halloween.
Cinematographic process - HDTV (1080p/24)
Printed film format - 35 mm Digital
Aspect ratio - 1.78 : 1
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
/horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Jeff Lieberman. It was filmed with HD cameras around New York City, USA in 2003 and premiered at film festivals in 2004. It had a direct-to-DVD release on October 4, 2005.
Plot
Douglas 'Dougie' Whooly is a nine year old boy obsessed with a video game, in which he plays Satan's little helperSatan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
. Dougie and his mother go to pick up Dougie's sister Jenna, who has been away at college studying acting, but is coming home to spend Halloween with her brother. Dougie is excited to see his sister, declaring to his mother he wants to marry her. The reunion between the two turns sour when Dougie finds out she has brought her boyfriend, Alex. She introduces him as a fellow actor and another native of their town, the two of them meeting on the trip home, since Alex attended a different high school. Dougie treats Alex with scorn, and upon arriving home, angrily turns on Jenna before he runs off.
Dougie wanders around the neighborhood and finds a man - dressed in a cheap costume with a horned mask - carrying a dead woman out of a house. Dougie believes the woman to be an impressively realistic dummy, and watches in awe as the man fusses with the body's position on the front porch. When the man finally goes on his way, Dougie follows. When he sees the man arranging another dead body on a lawn as if it were a decoration, Dougie goes up to him, naively believes the man is Satan, which he accepts. While Dougie is with Satan, their mother convinces Jenna to try on the mother's costume from last year. Jenna refuses to wear her mother's "renaissance slut" outfit, but her mother persists. When she finally gives in, she's surprised and impressed by how sexy she looks in it, and tries on a british accent and bolder personality to go with the costume, which she reprises a few times throughout the film. Alex decides to bond with Dougie by dressing as Satan for Halloween, leaving with Dougie to get a costume. While Jenna and her mother watch them go, her mother scolds her for biting her nails, which Jenna brushes off. She tells her mother she can't wait to see what Alex is like when he comes back, claiming he's an excellent actor.
Dougie and Satan knock out Alex by setting him up for an ambush, so they can bond with each other. Dougie brings Satan home, whom everyone believes to be Alex. After meeting his seductive sister Jenna, Satan is obviously taken with her sexy appearance and immediately seizes her breasts and begins touching her body, to which Jenna is flattered by, but believes is just Alex playing the part of his costume. She coyly leads him up to her room, where she initially enjoys his attentions. However, he refuses to speak, and when she attempts to remove his mask to kiss him, he responds violently. She decides it's a part of his character and ignores it, but when she has had enough fondling and wants to stop, he begins choking her. Dougie, not understanding the sexual interest Satan has taken in his sister, unknowingly saves her when he barges into her room to see the two. Satan stops to avoid upsetting Dougie, and his sister decides to play the situation off as Alex being too into his role.
When Satan and Dougie leave to get Halloween candy, they instead steal tools needed to murder, and then attack and kill several people, including Alex's dad, which Dougie believes is merely part of a game. On the way home, they engage in a killing spree involving a grocery cart. While walking through a cemetery, the police accost them, and Satan tells Dougie to run home while he murders the police. We soon find out that all the police on the island community are now dead. Dougie returns home to wait for his master. When Dougie tells Jenna about what they've done, she begins to think that Alex is pushing the game too far. She waits for Alex (who she still thinks is the man in the Satan costume) to come home.
After he arrives, his new personality starts to frighten her, she realizes he is not wearing the right shoes - that he isn't Alex. When Jenna tries to tell her mother it's not Alex, she dismisses it and just thinks the two are taking their acting too seriously. Dougie's father comes home, and despite Jenna's attempts to stop him, he ventures upstairs and is brutally killed in front of the rest of the family. Dougie is finally horrified by what he's seeing, realizing it's real and not a game, and flees when his mother tells him to. While the killer menaces her mother, Jenna tries to call the police, but there's no one to answer. He kidnaps their mother, and as Jenna tries to follow, Alex startles her. They both go after the killer, who they believe is a boy they saw on the news earlier, Billy. He was arrested a year ago for Halloween arson. Because the killer knows what they both look like, they break into a Halloween store to steal new costumes as disguises, so they can get close enough to stop him.
The killer takes the mother to a Halloween party. Everyone assumes the tape wrapped all over her body and mouth is part of her costume, and believes the killer is her husband in costume. Despite her attempts to escape and signal for help, no one intervenes, in fact, they all find the her 'costume' hilarious. The killer poses for pictures, grabs other women's breasts (to their amusement, thinking this part of his act) and when no one except the mother is looking, pours deadly chemicals into the punch.
At home Dougie is in terror of the doorbell, while the town begins to riot, due to no police. He resentfully pulls off pieces of his Halloween costume. He prays to God for help, while Jenna and Alex try to get close to the killer. Unfortunately, in the manner which Jenna realizes the killer wasn't Alex, so too is Jenna recognizes by her pink sparkly heels. He tauntingly lifts a final piece of tape and wraps it over her mother's nose, then pushes her deeper into the crowd. The rest of the crowd fails to grasp the peril, pushing the staggering woman from one person to another, laughingly picking her up when she falls. When Jenna reaches her, she realizes she can't get under the tape, due to her lack of nails. Right before her mother is lost, she manages to pull off the tape. Alex follows and confronts the killer, who somehow leads him to believe he is Alex's father. He takes Alex's gun, shoots his own hand, and gives it back to Alex before walking away. Jenna and Alex go to Alex's house, where they see 'Satan' is standing outside. After he is shot and falls down, they unmask him to reveal Alex's father. Jenna leaves to pick up her family, telling Alex not to blame himself for shooting him.
At the house Dougie believes his prayers are answered when he opens the door to reveal 'God' - in a Jesus costume. Dougie is convinced to follow him, believing that like 'Satan', 'God' doesn't talk, and that because he's bleeding 'real blood' from his hand, he must really be God. Jenna finds Dougie, who tells her about God and the blood. She brings him home, and upon questioning Dougie, realizes that Alex's father died earlier and 'God' is 'Satan'. Their mother arrives, and Jenna remembers Alex thinks the killer is dead, and tries to call and warn him, too late. He's dragged off by the killer. Jenna wants to go find him, but is held back by her family. When they hear a noise in the basement, they go investigate, armed. When they see the Jesus costume, they violently attack it, only discovering after that it's Alex they've killed instead. Upstairs, Dougie spots a rescue helicopter, and tries to use a police car radio to ask for help. When a police officer steps up, Dougie believes he came because of his message, and the family lets him inside. While the rest of them go deeper into the house, the officer steps back and spray paints a 6 beneath their home address - 66 - and we can clearly see he's wearing a mask. The movie ends in a cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...
. When the screen goes black, before the credits roll, Jenna asks, "Mom? Why won't he say anything?" Dougie answers, "He's afraid Satan will hear him."
Reception
Satan's Little Helper has gotten mixed reviews on IMDb, but the film has received a small cult followingCult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
.
Scoopy.com said about the movie: "If anyone ever gets to see this flick, it could become a cult classic, even a franchise. It is filmed in glorious, bright, saturated colors to give it an ironically cheerful look like the beginning of Blue Velvet, and it looks just about as good as a B-movie is ever going to look. It has its scary moments, some mild gore, some bare breasts, some hot sweaty bawls and a lot of humor minus the laughs. Although Halloween clones are not normally among my favorite types of movies, I enjoyed the film because it is very heavy on the morbid humor, allowing it to exist simultaneously as 80s slasher fare and a parody of same. It isn't as serious as Halloween or as silly as Scary Movie, but strikes a workable balance between them."
Cast
- Alexander Brickel .... Douglas "Dougie" Whooly
- Katheryn WinnickKatheryn WinnickKatheryn Winnick is a Canadian film and television actress.-Life and career:Etobicoke-born Winnick, who is of Ukrainian descent and speaks fluent Ukrainian, has appeared in numerous studio films including Paramount's Failure to Launch and New Line's Amusement.She has guest starred in multiple...
.... Jenna Whooly - Stephen Graham .... Alex Martin
- Amanda Plummer .... Merrill Whooly
- Wass M. Stevens .... Dean Whooly (as Wass Stevens)
- Dan Ziskie .... Vernon Martin
- Melisa McGregor .... Nicole
- Joshua Annex .... Satan Man
- Joyce R. Korbin .... Mrs. Sylvia Tishbaum
- Anthony Ardolino .... Hunter
- Mary Kay Adams .... Fran
- Christian Robert Varley .... He Head
- JoAnna Beckson .... She Head (as Joanna Bechsen)
- Larry 'Ratso' Sloman .... Mayor Flarin
- Lisa Barnes .... Mrs. Flarin
- Declan Mulvey .... Packing Boy
- Jim Fitzpatrick .... Pinoccio
- Adel Morales .... Valet
- Dana Smith Croll .... Dragon Lady (as Dana Smith-Croll)
- Lisa G. .... News Commentator
- John McLoughlin .... Hunchback (as Johnny McLoughlin)
- Steve Friedman .... Other Kid
- Joey Greene .... Billy Flarin
- Marshall Mills .... Driver
- Erika Lieberman .... Party goer (uncredited)
The movie shows an exceptional masterpiece played throughout the Halloween.
Technical details
Film negative format - Video (HDTV)Cinematographic process - HDTV (1080p/24)
Printed film format - 35 mm Digital
Aspect ratio - 1.78 : 1