The small-scale cult horror film, Satan's Little Helper, actually has nothing to do with Christmas, despite the misleading pun in the title. It's a Halloween film that borrows from a few of the classic slasher films while managing to create something completely new. While having an obviously meager budget, this direct-to-DVD flick doesn't often show it, apart from having a low-quality camera and some less than oscar winning acting and it makes up for it in full thanks to it's inventiveness.
The plot goes that some kid named Dougie is obsessed with a game called Satan's Little Helper, wherein the goal is to cause all sorts of mayhem and mischief under the careful guidance of Satan. In fact, this kid is so into the game that he actually dresses up as Satan and he never talks about anything else. Seriously, I'm not sure if the kid has one single line that isn't directly related to Satan. Anyway, on Halloween night, he happens to bump into a mysterious character who's dressed up as the creep pictured above. The boy immediately latches onto his side and the wordless Satan employs him in order to carry out his bidding. What is said bidding? Well it mostly consists of murdering random people as well as foraying into nigh teenage level mischief as he impersonates a boyfriend in order to feel up a girl, steals candy from a convenience store, poisons a punch bowl and other such random crime.
It's a highly original concept that manages to be pretty creepy. One would think that Satan's eccentric affinity for goofing about with menial rebelliousness to be off-putting, but it adds a this-could-totally-happen-in-real-life aspect to it that in turn is disturbing in its own right. Though, don't mistake this film for scary, it's more of a dark comedy if anything else. Satan's law-breaking is often fabulously high-profile and his mannerisms can be funny just to watch as he carries out his actions with no regard to his own well-being.
There are a few things that bring it down of course. The lead child actor is pretty obnoxious and is over-the-top in all the wrong ways and you'd think that any self-respecting parent would be at least somewhat concerned with Dougie's avid obsession with Satan and Hell. Some of the crimes are simply too absurd to get away with, for instance there's a scene where Satan brings a fully-conscious, taped up hostage to a costume party and no one seems to care. Granted it's a costume party but it's stupid to think that anyone viewing the situation wouldn't guess that something was amiss. Not to mention, some of the character's thought processes make no discernible sense for example in one scene where a character wrongly believes that the guy in the Satan costume is his own father.
I would also note that the film sort of loses steam once Dougie gives up his blistering naïvety and figures out that Satan isn't playing a game. Then it sort of devolves into the characters trying to track the bastard down and in this, it runs on a bit too long for it's own good. There were several parts over the course of it's hour and 36 minute runtime where the film could've simply ended and would've had a decent cliffhanger, instead of trudging on to the point of mild campiness and reusing a few of it's gimmicks.
Satan's Little Helper is a pretty fun, slightly above-average horror flick that entertains with its unique ideas and macabre sense of humor. It's a good one to watch if you've got nothing better to do.
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