Mr Crocket

A Nightmare On Elm Street meets The Ring - except Freddy is a children's show host and the deadly cassette tape is the host's old school public access TV children's show.

There were choices made that prevented Mr. Crocket from being a near-perfect horror romp, but it's still entertaining as hell and has what it takes to become a cheesy annual Halloween staple! It's a hodgepodge of over-the-top horror campiness and gore, emotional family drama, derivative investigation sequences, and a fun yet legitimately menacing villain.

Elvis Nolasco as the titular character 110% knew the assignment and helped create an iconic horror villain! So much so, I feel like the movie would have suffered without Nolasco's self-aware performance. He fully embodies the genuinely innocent children's show host, even in the most frightening scenarios (except for a few moments when it made sense to break away).

Another thing that made this movie worthwhile was its use of practical gore, sets, and puppetry. It made the decades-old children show feel tangible and nostalgic, and really elevated the campy scenes of violence and doom. When digital FX is used, it's cheesy and feels out of place. I could only imagine how amazing it would've been if they instead used analog video manipulation and distorting; this approach would've fit with in the world of the movie and it would've made those scenes much, much scarier.

Considering we're less than a decade into obliterating black tropes in horror, I'm excited to see daring films like this. Script is a little flimsy and probably could have better spent the budget on some production design, but the acting is solid and the story works. The 80's-90's setting, which feels somewhat derivative of Peele, plays well into the surrealism.

Elvis Nolasco delivers on the assignment of his character, borrowing from legendary performances like Gene Wilder's, Wonka and Clarence William's, Mr. Simms. Although he lacks the physicality they both had.

But honestly, the steam escapes pretty quickly and we're left with a soggy, fantasy-horror.

Plot

A mother embarks on a perilous quest to rescue her son from a demonic children's show host who is kidnapping kids.

Cast

Not familiar with anybody involved.

Verdict

My movie night pick having no idea what it even was turned out to be a really quite nice surprise and certainly something I'd welcome more of.

Mr Crocket is an original horror film that very much draws influence from many 1980's and 1990's movies while forging its own identity and bringing a lot of new ideas to the table.

With a fascinating new antagonist that's more 1 dimensional than most I was hooked from the opening moments.

Mr Crocket has the potential to turn into a modern day horror icon and man does the genre need a few right now! Let's have more Mr Crocket movies please and build up the lore further.

You see it all looks fantastic, it's acted well, it's written solidly and though it does perhaps trail off a but near the end it never lost my attention and that's quite the feat.

I want more and solidly recommend this to any true horror enthusiast.

Rants

When it comes to horror icons look at who there is, now look at when they started. They all had a large number of films over many decades but who can you say that about newer characters that have had multiple films and you can see carrying on long into the future? Not many are there. It's such a shame, we need to remedy that badly in this guys opinion.

The Good

Very original stuff Great antagonist, both character and actor Extremely engaging

The Bad

Last act is weaker than the rest Intolerable kid.

Mr. Crocket is a fun, bloody ride that blends dark children's TV vibes with satisfyingly campy horror. The deaths are sick and funny, the puppets are demented, and the cartoon sequences are genuinely creepy. A lot of effort has gone into recreating the 90s aesthetic through the sets and wardrobe, so it's definitely worth a watch if you're looking for 90s horror nostalgia.

Elvis Nolasco is undeniably the star of the show as Mr. Crocket, the unsettling kids' TV host who blurs the line between saccharine sweetness and killer monstrosity.

Unfortunately, after a very creatively bloody opening that hooks you in, the story does start to lose some steam. The pacing becomes uneven, and the plot feels a bit clunky and disjointed at times. As a movie adapted from a short, you can tell that the adaption from its intended runtime to 90 minutes wasn't the smoothest transition. Still, it manages to hang on and keeps things interesting enough to pull you through.

If you're into dark kids' TV, practical gore, or VHS horror, Mr. Crocket is certainly worth a watch. It's not without its flaws, but you can tell that the makers poured a lot of passion into making this - at no point does it feel phoned in. It's the kind of movie that's best enjoyed on a Friday night when you're in the mood for something fun and a little twisted.

Ok, i really wanted to like this one - with a very promising opening sequence and incredibly novel concept, i felt like this was going to be a hit.....but no so much.

Its basically mr. Rogers meets freddy krueger/pennywise (IT) - a childrens TV host comes out of the TV to kill parents and abduct children - very novel concept with a ton of potential but it went in a very campy direction (not in a good way) and lost a lot of steam about halfway through.

The acting was pretty stiff and the writing wasnt great. It did have some pretty decent practical special effects and the puppetry was done well. But other than that, i didnt feel like this one lived up to its full potential.

It felt like the writer/director had a concept built around special effects and then shoehorned everything else in to complete it - everything other than the special effects are an after thought and fall real flat.

Overall, i would not reco this one. If redone in a different way and taken more seriously, yeah, sure, but i dont think its worth your time - skip.