Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Jerrika Hinton, Ayden Gavin, Kristolyn Lloyd
Set in 1994, right after the wake of her husband's tragic death, Summer (Jerrika Hinton) finds herself emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted from managing her disobedient son Major (Ayden Gavin) as a single mother. Dealing from one temper tantrum to another, she's willing to try anything to get her young boy to act better and civil, so when a mysterious little library containing a VHS copy of a show called Mr. Crocket's World suddenly materializes outside her home, Summer is simply happy to have something to pacify Major from being an absolute brat as the he becomes enraptured by the show.
Maybe, too enraptured. Obsessed, really.
It comes to a point that Major does nothing but watch the tape everyday, rightfully worrying Summer into attempting to take the show away from her son, leading to the two having a rather terrible fight. As hearts get broken and hurtful exchanges are made, it isn't until later that night when the impossible happens: crawling out of the TV, who else than Mr, Crocket himself arrives, with a magic marker at hand to open a fun new world where Major is welcome to stay. And for anyone who opposes, well, let's just say Mr. Crocket doesn't take it kindly with people who fail their sacred duty as parents.
Not very kindly, at all.
I remember a time, maybe half a decade or so ago, when I used to listen to Youtube narrations of creepypastas as background noise while I work. The ones I tend to enjoy the most involve supposedly innocent shows turning out to be awfully messed up in many ways, putting the creep in creepypasta from the fact that underneath the façade of rainbow colored rooms and fluffy happy puppets, the people pulling the strings could be harboring a twisted need to harm the very audience they're entertaining.
Mr. Crocket (2024) could have been an absolute creep show if it have taken this route with a bit more weight in tone; there's a working idea here already, of a mundane-looking kid show host arriving seemingly out of thin air to brutally end abusive parents before kidnapping and imprisoning children to a supposedly better place. It could have been unsettling. It could have been uneasy. It could have been provocative, even. Instead, the film went on a path of crafting another boogeyman with a personality, a killer Saturday morning figure under the light of one Freddy Krueger from Elm Street, showcasing deadly fantastical abilities, a legion of monsters to do his bidding and very demented lectures aimed towards the parents he kills, hammering the very reason why they're about to become demon chow. It just feels like a big missed opportunity to make this plot as captivating as it is serious, especially since it tackles parental neglect, child abuse and upended parent-child bonds, but if you're more in the mood for a streamlined yet delicately handled horror approach to these touchy subject matters, then this movie does a fair enough job in that department.
For a film marketing another twistedly mouthy horror villain to cake the ground with blood and gore, it does take its time to build around the relationship between Major and Summer. In particular, the struggles Summer goes through as a single parent keeping her rather ill-tempered son in line without the need of a heavy hand until, that is, a proper lashing out feels like the only way to make him behave. We can see she's doing her best out of love and understanding, and Mr. Crocket (2024) is willing to throw in a couple of extra shades between the lines, reminding us that, sometimes, there is no easy step-by-step solution to these problems, all the while still being goofy and silly when needed to be. (Like throwing in homeless people who builds a contraption out of broken TVs to hunt Crocket via airwaves. Don't mind the what's and the how's. Just, why the hell not?)
When it comes to the horror elements, it's standard supernatural slasher affairs; the kills are deliciously gory and there's a good sense cathartic satisfaction seeing some of these parents get their just desserts for how nasty they are. Mr. Crocket himself is a delight, played with devilish glee by a scene-chewing Elvis Nolasco who nails it as the maddened Mr. Rogers-type. Intriguingly, in his own oddly twisted way, Crocket does have good intentions behind his modus operandi of murders and kidnappings, all revealed by the third act through an animated story time (of course), making the fella a decent fantastical villain that's easier to swallow compared to most other movie creeps out there. I'm a bit underwhelmed, though, that they're using the easy route of Faustian deals to explain Crocket's powers, a rather overused concept at this point, but so long it means a cheesy-looking hellverse recreation of your typical public access studio set populated with flesh-eating mascot monsters for our leading characters to try surviving, I can work with it.
While it's far from re-inventing the horror wheel, Mr. Crocket (2024) is an agreeable supernatural bodycounting venture for fans of old school slasher horror and those with a taste for a particular niche of childhood whimsy-gone-wrong. It's not going to win everyone, but if you're not asking too much from a horror flick, then this is a good title for you to catch!
Bodycount:
1 male disemboweled with a knife, gut stuffed with plates and clothes iron
1 male seen dead, cause unknown
1 male had his head blown apart by a bubble
1 male found dismembered and headless
1 female stabbed in the neck with a broken chair leg
1 male bludgeoned with a cooking pan (flashback)
1 male knifed to death (flashback)
1 male killed with a knife (flashback)
1 male shot dead (flashback)
1 male slaughtered to death
Total: 10
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