Director/Screenplay – Jeff Lieberman, Producers – Jeff Lieberman, Mickey McDonough, Isen Robbins & Aimee Schoof, Photography – Dejan Georgevich, Music – David Horowitz, Makeup Effects – Anthony Pepe, Satan Mask Designed by Jonathan Fuller, Production Design – Jack Chandler. Production Company – Satan’s Little Company/Intrinsic Value Productions.
Cast
Alexander Brickel (Douglas Whooly), Katheryn Winnick (Jenna Whooly), Joshua Annex (Satan), Amanda Plummer (Merril Whooly), Stephen Graham (Alex), Wass Stevens (Dean Whooly), Dan Ziskie (Vernon), Melisa McGregor (Nicole), Joyce Korbin (Mrs Tishbaum)
Plot
On Bell’s Island, young Douglas Whooly is a fan of the videogame Satan’s Little Helper. His older sister Jenna returns home for Halloween. Douglas was planning in going trick-or-treating with her and is upset because she brings Alex, a guy she met in her acting class, with her. Douglas runs off, saying he wants to wants to give himself to Satan. He comes across a figure in a devil mask who has just killed some people. Douglas believes this is Satan and says he wants to become his helper. Satan agrees and Douglas smuggles him into the basement so that he can kill Alex. Alex takes Douglas out with him to get a Halloween costume but Satan knocks Alex out and returns with Douglas where Jenna takes him to be Alex in costume. With Douglas’s help, Satan proceeds to leave a trail of bodies around the town.
Jeff Lieberman was a director who worked in horror cinema during the 1970s, although never attained the cult status of other directors from the era such as George Romero, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma, Larry Cohen or Tobe Hooper. Lieberman appeared with two films that have gained a small cult audience – the killer worm saga Squirm (1976) and Blue Sunshine (1977) about people being turned into crazed zombies as a result of LSD flashbacks. During this period, Lieberman also made the fine but little seen Backwoods Brutality film Just Before Dawn (1981) and the tv movie Dr Franken (1980), which cleverly updates the Frankenstein story to a modern hospital.
Lieberman’s output began to flag after that point with he only making the silly Remote Control (1988) about an alien mind control videotape and then a long period of silence before making a belated return to the director’s chair two decades later with Satan’s Little Helper. Outside of that Lieberman has done little – the story for the children’s film The Neverending Story III (1994), as creator/producer of the tv series Til Death Do Us Part (2006-7), an anthology series about marriages that end in murder, and directing a handful of tv movies.
Satan’s Little Helper has a premise – a kid volunteers to help a serial killer as they rack up a body count on Halloween – that could go either way – it could be something really edgy or else just something lame and cutsie. Thankfully, Lieberman goes with the former option and creates a film that frequently leaves your jaw on the floor asking yourself “What the feck did I just watch?”
(l to r) The serial killer Satan (Joshua Annex) and his little helper Douglas (Alexander Brickel)
Jeff Lieberman pushes the material to some fairly outrageous limits – one victim is killed by Satan on their porch and their blood used to write “boo” on a board before Satan then poses with the body as a parent and child come by asking for a photo. There is a particularly malicious montage of scenes with Satan pushing Douglas in a shopping cart as they run down a pregnant woman, a baby in a stroller and a blind man. Or of Satan hanging an old lady on a walking frame from her porch, where she is promptly taken as another Halloween exhibit. In other scenes, Satan feeds kids drugs as Halloween candy and poisons a punchbowl with Drain-O. Elsewhere, Douglas gets to witnesses his father’s guts being torn out.
The plot twists and turns – none more so than the scenes where Alex takes Douglas off to get a Halloween costume, is waylaid by Satan who then returns home with Douglas where everyone thinks he is Alex dressed in costume, whereupon he starts to aggressively make out with Katheryn Winnick, which she responds to favourably and starts getting turned on. Satan’s Little Helper is a film that left my jaw on the floor. I do wish someone else would give Jeff Lieberman money to make more films.
