Little Evil (2017)

It's a wet Sunday afternoon and this was the top title on Netflix.

We weren't sure if it was a kids film - looked like one but there was no classification on Netflix or on here.

I started watching it with my daughter (9) - it's not a scary movie and in some places it's quite funny, so OK for children in that respect, then there's the swearing, if there was no swearing it would be a perfect kids film for the 8+ age group.

So all in all an OK Sunday afternoon movie, family movie? well, if you can bypass the swearing then it's a funny family film

Fmovies: A very fun horror comedy, but leans more on the comedy side. Parodies many classic horrors in a very unique way and has quite a lot of laughs.

The acting was quite good, particularly Adam Scott. He suited the role and brought some flavour to scenes. Bridget Everett was hilarious and plays quite a different type of character than usually expected. They both carried the film. I wish the mother had a bit more personality, it just seems as she is there to fulfill her role. She definitely needed more screen time to flesh out her character.

However, the cinematography is very conventional and bland. It is important part of a film and is lacking. Many jokes could have been even funnier with creative cinematography or editing. Though it is worth watching for both horror and comedy lovers.

I was browsing through Netflix when I found Little Evil, which had come out recently. It seemed like a fun horror comedy, perfect for the day, so I decided to watch it.

There are many things I like in Little Evil, but it doesn't go above average. Of course the idea isn't original, isn't this a play on very typical stories about kids who seem to be the spawn of Satan. Most of them are actual horror movies, though. Little Evil mixes that horror story with the theme of being a stepparent in a humorous way, which itself is fresher than the movie might feel when you read the summary.

But in the end the story doesn't go where you'd want it to go. Of course some of the plot points are good, and the movie is fun and light, and there's something very special about it. But in the end the only thing this movie ends up being is somewhat funny. Everything else is actually quite superficial, and let's be honest, the humorous side probably wouldn't be as good if you watched this movie several times.

So definitely worth seeing once, if you're not too serious for horror comedies, but that's all.

Little Evil fmovies. The trailer for "Little Evil" was hilarious. Unfortunately, there isn't enough material here to sustain a feature length film. Forty minutes in I found myself looking at my watch ... and I don't even wear a watch. I was hoping for "Zombieland" but alas, I got "Krampus".

If you like the supernatural horror genre and horror/comedy mashups in particular, "Little Evil" is still worth a viewing, not least to catch the abundant allusions to "The Omen," "The Shining," et al. All others should pass this one by.

The first thing to say is that the first two acts of this movie really struggle to truly find the line between horror and comedy. It tries to find comedy in a normal person reacting to a devil child, but that is pretty much every possession horror ever so there isn't much new ground there, and the attempted comedy often falls flat while also taking away from the potential actual creepiness of the scene. It's easy to rule this out as a failed attempt at recapturing the Tucker and Dale vs. Evil vibe.

But then the third act happens and the movie really comes into its own. The humour and tension are amped up and instead of being a shadow of dozens of horrors and a shadow of dozens of comedy it becomes its own movie and is much better for it. There is even a great message about the difference between nature and nurture and there are some good original ideas that make it much more enjoyable.

Overall it is a shame you have to wait for the third act to get going, especially since they show the catalyst for this momentum shift at the very beginning. You could argue they need the first two acts to set up for the third, but if so then they should have focused more on the comedy since there are way too many evil/possessed child films to care about getting that part right. Still though it's hard not to recommend this movie since the third act is really enjoyable, I just wish they could have gotten there sooner. Maybe just skip to that point.

Listen, I'm all for brevity for it's own sake, particularly when it comes to concept-heavy comedy-horror hybrids, which often mistake an inspired concept for an interesting plot. Here however, this movie gets going before the audience has any clue what's going on, forcing the screenplay to force-feed its own narrative history into the dialogue, which results in stiff, clumsy interactions. Adam Scott is wasted in his role here, bringing his usual befuddled charisma but finding nothing to work against. It's a shame because there's a story to be told here, it just didn't happen well this time.