Little Evil (2017) 1h 34m

This is the third fuckin' horror movie I'm doing on here that has Adam Scott in it! Piranha, Krampus, and now the Netflix original, Little Evil!  Is he becoming the new Christopher Walken, popping up all over the place because he doesn't want to get bored?  I'm not complaining.  He became a boy mayor and blew the town's money on a giant winter sports complex named Ice Town!  And if you don't understand that then go watch Parks and Rec you uncouth fart!

Little Evil is a horror comedy based around the premise of The Omen... or maybe just an AC/DC album since the kid looks more like Angus Young than Damien.  Gary marries the woman of his dreams without having ever spent time with her son Lucas.  Lucas is literally the child of the devil, conceived through some strange cult ritual.  Gary just wants to be a good step-dad for his step-son, Lucas wants to bring about the apocalypse, the mother is oblivious.  It's a step-dad support group vs. a doomsday cult while Gary attempts to become the father he never had.

Netflix hasn't really been pumping out good content when it comes to their original horror films (ex: I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House) but they do a much better job when it's a cross-up such as this.  It's like an America swing at making a film in the vein of Shaun of the Dead.  We get nods to The Shining, Poltergeist, and some Ghostbusters humor thrown in.  We're also treated to one of the best uses of Rush's "Tom Sawyer" for a device reveal.  I had a good time watching Little Evil.  It's one of those films where you could have some friends over, order some food, and make a Friday night of it.

I give Little Evil 3 copies of High Voltage out of 5:

Day 20: The Diabolical (2015) 1h 26m

The funny thing about rolling dice to pick what movie I'm going to watch is that sometimes you get something good, and sometimes you come up craps.  After watching the movie I previously reviewed (High Lane) I was hoping to get a decent pallet cleanser.  This time, lady luck was on my side.

The Diabolical focuses on a single mom and her two children.  An entity of some sort randomly appears in their home and causes all kinds of fear and havoc.  One of the kids believes that it might be the spirit of their deceased father.  Over time more and more of the plot unravels including a laboratory that wants to buy/threatens to foreclose on their home and someone close to them is tied in as well.  I'm not going to plot heavy on this one because aside from the sci-fi section at the end, this movie was pretty good.

A lot of the visual effects were great.  The figure that keeps appearing through the house looks frightening as fuck.  There's an early scene where we first see him and there's just a featureless face that he suddenly rips into and tears a film away to show the real face underneath.  It went from "Oh, that guy is rad looking," to "holy fuck!" that fast.  Every time he appears in his grotesque form it's always a good creep out.  My personal favorite being the one involving the dryer.

The "twist" part of the ending you see coming a little bit before the reveal if you know what to look for.  Also, as I said above, the sci-fi tie in element toward the end elicits more of a groan than a gasp.  Overall, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so I do recommend The Diabolical.

I give The Diabolical a solid 3 fake ghost photos out of 5: