Little Evil - Netflix original

LITTLE EVIL 2017

The new Netflix original horror comedy came to our screens last week and last night I sat down to watch it. Let's talk about it!

Written and directed by Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil) Little Evil has an incredible cast including Adam Scott, Evangeline Lilly, Donald Faison and Chris D'Elia.


Gary is recently married and moving in with his new wife and his new stepson, Lucas. But something is wrong with Lucas....like seriously wrong. In fact, he may just be the antichrist.

Very much like Craig's film, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, this story is a satire. We all know parenthood is a disaster on its' own, but Gary is essentially struggling with Satan for custody over his new stepson which creates a lot of hilarious moments. There's a lot of great horror nods - The Shining, Poltergeist, The Omen, Rosemary's Baby etc. And some really hilarious setups, my personal favorite being when Gary is forced to join a stepdad support group and all of the other dads are sharing their "evil kid" stories which sound very similar to Lucas, except for the minor detail that Lucas is being controlled by the Devil.

Most of the film relies on Adam Scott to pull this wacky story off without becoming too much of a joke of itself. Luckily Adam Scott is incredible at what he does, playing off that dead pan humor like its' the easiest thing in the world. He shows enough drama and emotion in the more serious parts, but can pull us easily out of a scene in the best way with one raise of an eyebrow. Owen Atlas plays Lucas and does a really stand out job of playing that Damien style horror. Without many words he can stare you down through the camera and creep you the fuck out. Evangeline Lilly plays her character very well with that undying love of a mother who can't see that anything is wrong with her child, because as she says many times, "it is never the child's fault."


The horror elements while fun and campy, never actually hit that true satisfying horror moment so this is absolutely more comedy than horror.  And the ending for me personally felt a little too cheesy, but I'm not sure how else it could've ended, so I won't complain too much.

Overall it was super entertaining - I had a few laugh out loud moments and enjoyed spotting all the horror movie nods.

7/10

Stay Spooky!

DEATH NOTE - Adam Wingard knocks another one out of the park!

Death Note is officially out on Netflix and last night I watched it. Let's talk about it!

 DEATH NOTE 2017

It's like you said, sometimes you gotta choose the lesser of the two evils. 

Directed by Adam Wingard (You're Next, The Guest, Blair Witch) Death Note is a Netflix original film and is based on the manga series by the same name. The series was written by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. I've read the manga series and it's INCREDIBLE but for this review I'm going to just review this as a stand alone story and not compare it. It's an adaptation and I'm over just nit picking adaptations for missing every little detail. So I'm going to look at this film as a separate entity.

Death Note is a simple premise with a lot of complex rules - set in Seattle, high school student Light finds a notebook with the words "Death Note" engraved on the front. As he picks it up a Death God named Ryuk appears and explains to Light that if he writes the name of someone in the book and a way of death, that person will die. He encourages Light to put in a school bully's name and Light watches horrified as that kid is suddenly decapitated.

At first, Light is terrified by the book and Ryuk, but when he puts the name of the man who killed his Mom in it and realizes the true power this book could wield, he quickly changes his tone. Soon he teams up with a classmate named Mia and the two of them start killing off bad guys left and right, leaving the name Kira in their wake. Soon the world comes to idolize Kira and sees him as an all powerful god of justice. But not everyone likes what this Kira guy is doing, and soon the police and a mysterious detective who goes by L are on Light's trail.

This is a solid cast - Nat Wolff plays Light and does a pretty decent job of handling the high powered emotions that this character goes through. Margaret Qualley stole my heart with her portrayal of Mia. Mia is a very complex and psychotic character and Margaret made it incredibly believable. Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out) played L and OH MY GOD WAS HE AMAZING?!?! L is such a cool character - he has no family, has been trained since he was a child to be the best detective in the world, and lives off of candy. He really stole the show.

What did I like about it?

• I loved Ryuk, voiced by Willem Dafoe. I loved that they kept him to the shadows and never ruined your perception of him by CG-ing the hell out of him in the daylight. He's always just off to the side, or with his back facing and he's so incredibly evil and well done.
• The final showdown was really great and super confusing but in the best way. At the very end when it all unravels you're just like holy shit and your mind is blown.
• The movie looks SO cool - the scenery, the coloring, the death note, the characters, the shots, the music!!!!!!!! Solid all the way around.
• It moves quickly - there's no fucking around. Within the first half hour you know the entire story and quickly find yourself in a cat and mouse chase. In some parts I do wish it could've been extended, get a little more story, but I'm not going to complain that a movie isn't three hours long. This is a solid running time and you don't feel cheated.
• Wingard's black humor is prominent in this film and I like that. Some moments felt very Final Destination like which made me SO happy!
• It's surprisingly very gory - again giving me Final Destination vibes.
• I only wish we got to see more of Montauk because that was an incredible couple of scenes.

Overall

Death Note may not be perfect, but it's a hell of a ride and I'll definitely watch it again and again!

9/10

Stay Spooky!