Just Watched: Satan's Little Helper (2004)

Even if you don't like the movie, you'll probably remember the mask

 Jeff Lieberman became known in the 70's and 80's for his oddball cult hits Squirm (1976), Blue Sunshine (1978) and Just Before Dawn (1981), then he basically vanished for several years. He finally resurfaced in 2004 with another oddball film called Satan's Little Helper, a very low budget horror-comedy that takes place on Halloween.

Satan's Little Helper tells the story of a young boy who is obsessed with the video game named after the movie title. It involves going around doing horrible things to people as an assistant to Satan. This Halloween the young boy's goal is to find Satan and be his helper. He finds a masked serial killer, mistakes him for Satan and follows him throughout the night not realizing that he's actually killing people.

Worse looking video game ever??

There's really no movie quite like Satan's Little Helper. It takes it's plot and stretches it to implausible situations, but as the film gets more and more ridiculous as nobody can seem to figure out this guy's a serial killer it becomes more enjoyable. As long as the audience can look at it in a humourous way they should be able to enjoy this quite a bit.

It's not for everybody, however. There's a scene with a cat meeting a painful death, running over handicapped people and some groping scenes involving some women and the serial killer. Some of the characters are also really dumb: the kid seems really, really dense as he is oblivious to what is happening around him, and the mom may be the worst mom to ever be in a movie.

There are, however, many memorable scenes here: the cat scene, a party where the killer has a victim but everybody thinks it's a joke, the grocery cart scene, it's probably one of the better really low budget movies in the last ten years. It's entertaining, oddball, contains some gory scenes, and some good laughs, basically everything you would expect from this type of film.

Definitely a highlight of the film

Availability: You should be able to find it on DVD for relatively cheap. The picture quality and DVD itself aren't really the best quality but keep in mind it is very low budget. It contains a commentary and making of featurette. 

If you're not a fan of some off colour humour or think the concept is dumb you probably won't enjoy Satan's Little Helper, but if you want a great little horror-comedy that has a little bit of everything then you should definitely check it out.

Please feel free to comment on the movie and/or blog. Any constructive criticism or positive feedback are always welcome.