The TRAPPO Town Gazette
Vol. 1, Issue 9: October 30, 2024
Hello, dear reader! Welcome to the latest edition of The TRAPPO Town Gazette, a weekly newsletter written by me (Dustin) and read by you (insert name here)! And this week is the best week of the whole year, because tomorrow is Halloween! Can you believe the day has finally arrived? Time passes by so quickly, doesn’t it? It seems like only yesterday we were sitting around in the sweltering heat of summer, wondering when the autumnal glories of All Hallows Eve would finally be here, and now it’s almost over. But don’t mourn the passing of the season, friend. Instead mourn the passing of your own youth as you slowly creep into the autumn of your own life, encroaching decrepitude haunting your every step like your own lengthening shadow while you cling to any meaningful distraction like a treasured friend.
Anyway, it’s time for a seasonally appropriate edition of Schlock Treatment!
Happy Halloween, I guess!
Satan’s Little Helper (2004)
IMDb logline: A naive young boy unknowingly becomes the pawn of a serial killer.
Satan’s Little Helper, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, tells the tale of little Dougie (Alexander Brickel, whose only other film credit is a small role in director Todd Solondz’s film Palindromes), an impressionable young lad who is positively obsessed with a video game called Satan's Little Helper, a delightfully janky title where the object is to help Ol' Scratch himself cause as much mayhem as possible while avoiding vengeful angels. Dougie has decided that he wants to be Satan's number one henchman this Halloween, even wearing a special costume his doting mother made just for him on this haunted occasion.
Dougie's collegian sister Jenna (Katheryn Winnick, probably best known as Lagertha from the hit TV series Vikings) comes home to her isolated island community to take her little brother trick-or-treating, a family tradition she refuses to break, but she also brings her new boyfriend Alex (Stephen Graham, whose only other notable credit is the scintillating role of “Hot Waiter” in a movie called Whigmaleerie) along, which upsets Dougie to no end. Dougie, the rambunctious scamp, wants everything to be just the same as it's always been, and this hunky stranger is selfishly ruining everything by simply showing up, despite the fact that he's actually a decent guy who just wants to make a good impression on his girlfriend's family. So Dougie just fucks off to sulk on his own, which isn’t such a big deal since this tight-knit community is on an isolated little island, so there are only so many places he can go. It’s hard to get lost when you can leisurely walk from one end of your town to another twice over in the time it would take to listen to Don McLean’s American Pie.
Not the album. Just the title track.
Luckily, wandering Dougie quickly stumbles upon a very oddly dressed dude in a killer devil mask setting up a startlingly realistic graveyard scene in his (?) front yard, and the boy is instantly smitten. He approaches the sinister stranger and abruptly asks if he can be the guy's little helper for Halloween, and the masked figure eagerly accepts his new companion, so the gruesome twosome set off for a night of blood-soaked shenanigans, and heaven help anybody who gets in their way.
Satan's Little Helper, director Jeff Lieberman’s blood-soaked love letter to trick-or-treat frivolity, is a lot of fun, and most of that fun is due to the oddly endearing relationship between Dougie and "Satan Man” (Josh Annex, in an entirely silent performance spent behind a full-head Satan mask). The little boy and his psycho pal spend the middle stretch of the film on a gleeful tour of destruction, running over pregnant women with shopping carts, stealing candy, lynching crippled old ladies, and poisoning wayward trick-or-treaters long into the terrifying night.
Dougie thinks it's all a series of gags, not believing anybody is really getting hurt, and "Satan Man" is having a ball hanging out with his pint-sized pal. There's a strong rapport between these two characters, and you get the feeling that "Satan Man" likes hanging out with Dougie, really enjoying having a playmate on this night of mayhem and murder. The very considerate “Satan Man” holds Dougie's hand whenever they cross the street, and he even pushes his eager helper around everywhere in a stolen shopping cart, so his little legs don't get tired. He has multiple opportunities to just kill Dougie, but he always keeps him alive, even when killing the boy would make things much easier for the costumed psychopath. Their relationship is actually kind of sweet in an insane way, at least until things inevitably fall apart in the third act. Such a shame, but I guess the candle that burns twice as hot lasts half as long.
After Dougie and his former best pal “Satan Man” break up, the film takes a somewhat more conventional approach to the third act, with "Satan Man" continuing his island rampage sans Dougie, but the character's off-kilter behavior manages to keep the narrative interesting throughout. One thing is made perfectly clear: "Satan Man" absolutely loves what he does. He poses for gruesome photos with costumed children, he brazenly feels up nearly every woman he comes across, and he lovingly poses his victims in public, creating macabre little scenes for unsuspecting passersby to discover. This guy is having a blast at the expense of all the poor saps in this doomed little town.
“Satan Man” even takes getting arrested by the cops in stride, using his incarceration as an opportunity to simply wipe out the entire island's police force in one fell swoop, even burning down the police station just to add insult to injury. This act transforms the isolated community into an anarchic playground, creating utter chaos and giving every little prankster in town ample opportunity to wreak havoc without consequence.
Credit must be given to actor Josh Annex for really throwing himself into the character of "Satan Man", hopping from playful to deadly at a moment's notice, often multiple times in the same scene. That his performance is entirely physical, never speaking a word and always acting behind a full mask, communicating only through exaggerated pantomime, speaks volumes as to Annex's talent. Without the right actor behind the creepy latex mask, the entire film would have fallen apart, and Annex's performance is so relaxed, perfectly capturing the story's blackly comic tone, that it elevates the whole endeavor. He makes it all look easy, which is a high compliment.
I love Satan's Little Helper. It's goofy, it's kitschy, and it almost perfectly captures that ideal Halloween spirit, delicately balancing on that very fine line between fun and fright. The movie's tone is delightfully macabre, providing plenty of unsettling moments hand in hand with some absolutely hilarious set pieces. It's Halloween the way it should be: disturbing and amusing in equal measure. The movie, an early all-digital production, was cheap to produce and has a real “made for TV” vibe, despite the copious violence and brief gratuitous nudity. It feels a lot like a really fucked-up Goosebumps story, I guess. It’s just difficult to take any of the bloody mayhem in Satan’s Little Helper seriously, which is part of the movie’s charm. It’s frivolous stuff for the morbid little kid within us all.
A lot of people out there really don’t like Satan’s Little Helper. Those people are dummies, because this movie is the goods. Criminally underrated and under seen, it's out there waiting for you to discover, to fall in love with the touching story of a boy and his masked psycho killer friend. Satan’s Little Helper is currently streaming on SHUDDER and AMC+, and the legendary Joe Bob Briggs even recently screened the movie during his latest Halloween special edition of The Last Drive-In, and director Jeff Lieberman even showed up for an informative interview to celebrate his film’s 20th anniversary. I urge you to give Satan’s Little Helper a shot this Halloween.
It’s got the TRAPPO seal of approval!
In other news, the annual Halloween podcast spooktackular from our friends at 66.6 KTRP goes live tomorrow, and you’re not going to want to miss it. There might be a live séance, and some spooky spirits might just show up. Who knows? You’ll have to tune in to find out. But if you’d like a little sneak peek, you can tune into a special edition of Dr. Butcher’s Transmissions From Elsewhere right now by following THIS LINK!
That’s it for this week’s newsletter, trick-or-treaters! Have a wonderful Halloween, and don’t forget to follow us on Threads for more spooky goodness all year round!
Stay Spooky!