October Horror Challenge 2017 #72: "Little Evil"

And here we are again, exploring the dangerous realm known as "horror comedy." As I think I've made clear throughout this challenge, horror comedies are a mixed bag. A bag of like, two good movies mixed with a huge pile of shit. For the most part, I don't find most comedies very funny in the first place, so when you take horror and add it to the mix, things can get gnarly. For the most part, horror comedies seem to fall into the trap of mocking people who like horror movies, and as a person who likes horror movies, that pisses me off. This movie in particular seems to be focusing on parodying the movie "The Omen," which is one of my favorite movies, so I'm even more leery. Here's hoping for the best.

Like I said, this movie pays a lot iof homage to "The Omen." It's about a man who just recently married his dream woman, only to find out that his new stepson might be the Antichrist. Yikes. Talk about a nightmare. The evil little kid is pretty hilarious. That's the first thing that would ruin this movie for me, if the little kid didn't play the role right. One if the things that made the original movie so creepy was that Damien seemed a lot like a normal little kid, cute and mischievous, which made the evil things that happened around him even creepier for me.

Owen Atlas plays the little kid, and he's really cute, mostly glowering and looking pissed off and barely talking, which lets all the other actors play off of him. This means the movie will also fall apart quickly if the other actors don't work in their roles. Luckily, Adam Scott plays the hapless step dad really well, and Evangeline Lily is adorable as the doting mom who refuses to believe there's anything wrong with her kid. So the kid, Lucas, stands around and is all evil, and Adam Scott bumbles around and tries to walk on eggshells to make his new stepson like him, and Evangeline Lily is just oblivious, and it actually works. It could be annoying if the mix were off, but the actors play off each other well and it actually made me laugh more than once, which is a big endorsement coming from me. I'm glad I gave this movie a chance.