Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are checking out director Brandon Espy’s feature length horror debut Mr Crocket. Mr Crocket follows the story of grieving mother Summer (Jerrika Hinton) and her son Major (Ayden Gavin). After her husband passes away, Summer begins to struggle with parenting.
Her son’s increasing disobedience and addiction to a children’s television show push her to her limit. Prompting a visit from the supernatural host of the aforementioned kid’s show Mr Crocket who aims to relieve her of her problems by taking Major away forever.
Demonic Kid’s Show Host
Mr Crocket plays out as a fairly familiar supernatural horror in the style of 80’s and 90’s movies like It, Candyman, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Something that is made all the more apparent by the movie being set in the early 90s.
The demonic kid’s show presenter Mr Crocket comes to the “aid” of desperate children who suffer with abusive, or neglectful, parents. He appears through the television, ala Sadako from Ringu, to torment the adults and take the children away to his own “paradise” where nothing else can harm them.
Some parents are deemed to be fit for a brutal butchering, resulting in some pretty inventive and gruesome kills. Complete with attacks by demented looking puppets based on the fuzzy denizens of the kid’s show world where Mr Crocket resides. While the less obviously horrendous adults are left to live. Haunted by the memory of losing their child and plagued by nightmares of Mr Crocket tormenting them while they sleep.
Works Pretty Well
It’s a concept that works pretty well and, for the first thirty minutes or so, it’s genuinely quite captivating. Mr Crocket appears as a menacing character who feels, very much, like a combination of the antagonists of the aforementioned horror movie classics. This is Candyman meets Pennywise with a little sprinkling of Freddy Krueger to keep things fresh and a dash of Mr Rogers for the kids.
Mr Crocket’s sinister, yet jovial, delivery is extremely familiar and the inspirations for both the character and the movie are very obvious. That isn’t a bad thing, of course. Mr Crocket feels like a suitable addition to this maniacal menagerie. He’s quite a fascinating character and the idea behind him is genuinely pretty great. Especially when you understand his background a bit more.
The idea of a twisted demon doling out his own form of sick justice is always a lot of fun and, for a while there, Mr Crocket almost seems like a bit of an anti-hero. Sticking it to parents who, rightfully, shouldn’t be in charge of a cat, let alone a child. Needless to say, the moments featuring Mr Crocket’s menacing presence are the highlights of the film. Standing out for being legitimately well done, quite creepy, and thoroughly entertaining.
Too Much or Not Enough?
The problems start when Espy attempts to build an entire film around this concept. You can’t really slam the viewer in the face with repeated scenarios of Mr Crocket terrorising people. You actually need to formulate a story and the obvious one is to have a parent attempting to rescue their child from Mr Crocket’s world. That’s exactly what happens here and it just doesn’t feel as though it works all that well.
The fact of the matter is that, when Mr Crocket isn’t on the screen, this can be a boring, run of the mill, movie full of very worn out horror tropes. Think Nancy and the gang working out how to get into Freddy’s dream world but less interesting and with a less likable cast. It gets boring very quickly and there is very little to grab onto. Some will probably struggle to relate to a character that has told their son they don’t want to be his parent anymore and others will simply find much of the middle section very dull indeed.
Downhill From There
Espy tries to pick things up a bit in the latter parts of the film but it just feels very predictable and not all that inspiring. Mr Crocket, later on, really loses a lot of his mystique. He feels a little bit too human and a little less scary than you would hope. Mr Crocket doesn’t have any of Pennywise’s shape shifting ability and his powers feel rather muted compared to a Candyman or Freddy Krueger. He simply doesn’t resonate all that well as a supernatural villain which robs the closing scenes of gravity.
This is, simply, one of those movies that would work much better as a short. Less is more, here, and I am not sure where the movie could have gone to keep things interesting. It simply gets a bit boring, a bit repetitive, and a bit overly familiar. Still, practical effects are great. The puppet designs are fantastic and work very well given the context. Some of the kills are pretty creative and Elvis Nolasco really stands out as Mr Crocket. There is potential here but I am not sure how it could be tapped into to get a little more out of it.
Should You Watch Mr Crocket?
I do think Mr Crocket is worth watching. The first half is fairly interesting and the character of Mr Crocket has a bunch of potential. There are elements of the movie that are very reminiscent of 90’s horror and the setting supports that well. It just sags so much in the middle that it makes it a bit of a slog. Mr Crocket quickly becomes very predictable and tropey, leading to an ending that is pretty vanilla and a bit of a disappointment. Still, very much worth a try for some old school horror fun.