Studio: BMG
Director: Steven LaMorte
Writer: Flip Kobler, Finn Kobler, Steven LaMorte
Producer: Amy Schumacher, Steven LaMorte, Martine Melloul
Stars: David Howard Thornton, Krystle Martin, Chase Mullins, John Bigham, Erik Baker, Flip Kobler, Amy Schumacher
Review Score:
Summary:
20 years after witnessing her mother's death at the hands of a creature dressed as Santa Claus, a woman returns home only to find the town in the grip of a new Christmas killing spree.
Review:
Like "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" (review here), "The Mean One" wrings a nightmare out of nostalgia by re-imagining a beloved children's property as a spatter-soaked horror show. Unlike "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey," "The Mean One" skirts around the problem of appropriating someone else's IP for unofficial use through a different legal loophole.
"Blood and Honey" gets away with making murderers out of Pooh and Piglet because, since 2022, those creations belong to the public domain. This means literally anyone can make a Hundred Acre Wood movie, book, or whatever they want, and they won't have to see the inside of a courtroom so long as Disney's trademarked images are left alone. Want to publish a story shipping Eeyore with another anthropomorphic animal in a lurid sex scene? If that's your kink, technically you can do that. Want to make religious propaganda where Kanga and Roo don dynamite vests to become suicide bombers for a controversial cause? You can do that without needing a lawyer, too.
Dr. Seuss' titular green meanie from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is very much not in the public domain, and won't be until at least midway through the 21st century. However, "The Mean One" wipes its hands of copyright complications by relying on America's wide-reaching interpretation of First Amendment rights, which protect a "parody" as free speech. Basically, claiming something incorporates satirical commentary allows a work to avoid qualifying as infringement, essentially making this tactic the legal equivalent of escaping consequences for an offensive transgression by contending, "I was just kidding."
I don't quite understand how "The Mean One" fully fits the definition of "parody" though. The left side of the film's horror-humor hyphen gets favored far more than brief comedy ever does. With the exception of sporadic visual gags, things never get slapstick silly, either. Yes, characters crack jokes and a narrator recites Seuss-style rhymes. There's also a particular pointed mountain and a leading lady named Cindy. But really, the movie plays like any other Santa slasher, except its killer happens to resemble the Grinch. So what, exactly, is "The Mean One" supposedly parodying? Maybe Dr. Seuss Enterprises merely thought it was better to hope the film would fade away quietly, rather than award it any free publicity with a lawsuit.
"The Mean One's" story starts like this. One Christmas Eve, little Cindy spots a creature sporting a Santa suit in her living room. The two of them have an innocuous interaction until Cindy's mom bursts in screaming, "Monster!" Chaos ensues and Cindy's mother dies. In the aftermath, the small town of Newville stops celebrating Christmas while Cindy spends much of her life dealing with devastating nightmares.
Twenty years later, Cindy makes her first return to Newville to sell her childhood home. Cindy's father Lou joins his daughter, although he isn't around for long. In a blur, a beast seemingly slays dear old dad. Cindy is certain the 'Christmas Killer' has returned, yet much like he did two decades ago, Sheriff Hooper rolls his eyes at Cindy's exclamations of a "monster."
In an unexpected move, "The Mean One" initially teases a minor mystery regarding who the killer could be. The suggestion that Cindy might be imagining things, or that someone in town could be the culprit, limits how much of the Mean One we actually get to see for the first half-hour. Perhaps remembering that viewers are only watching this movie to see the Grinch deck the halls with bloody gore, "The Mean One" then does a smart U-turn on the whodunit angle and from here on out, fully embraces itself as the Grinch-led slasher people are paying money for.
In addition to mass murders like a diner full of Santa cos-players getting slaughtered, the "here on out" includes Cindy forging a romance with the deputy investigating her case, a cryptic conspiracy between the sheriff and the mayor, and an 'Old Man Exposition' who arrives in the form of a traumatized town drunk who helps Cindy get into Rambo mode to take down the creature. For a small movie made with meager money, there's actually quite a bit going on here.
Due to its relative cheapness, unrecognizable cast, and the fact that its hook hinges on questionably associating itself with a holiday fan favorite, it's easy to hate on "The Mean One." From a quick glance at its negative scores and user reviews, many people have already done exactly that.
However, I've seen enough of the truly putrid DIY and DTV horror films out there to know that "The Mean One" isn't even close to making any "Worst Of" lists among genuinely awful indie horror experiences. I offer the following series of "buts" as evidence.
You'll probably never see a single one of "The Mean One's" actors in a noteworthy role ever again, if you ever even see them again at all. But they do know how to deliver lines, where to hit their marks for framing, and exhibit moderately more enthusiasm than the wooden friends and family members who normally get cast in micro-budget movies. One of the actors is also a producer, another also co-wrote the script, but they only have small parts and aren't using the movie as a vanity project to promote performing careers they'll never have.
"The Mean One" has that unmistakable "shot on digital" sheen that all post-millennium Amityville movies have. But the camera will sit still on a tripod, making tilts and pans to prove scenes were planned and rehearsed, not shot on the fly with a handheld phone. Some CGI enhancements such as cut-and-pasting the creature into a few pictures look they were photoshopped in five seconds, but a few digitized shots like the movie's main mountain and animated end credits show much more polish than similar efforts at this movie's low level.
Now, I have no intention of dying on a snowbank in defense of "The Mean One." "It could have been a lot worse" is not an endorsement. And with all of the other holiday horror options, Hallmark holiday romcoms, and countless Christmas classics to choose from, I can't imagine why "The Mean One" should be among anyone's top options for what to watch during December.
But "The Mean One" does have meat on its bones in the form of an actual story with distinct personalities, more competent technical execution than 95% of comparable movies usually have, and it does deliver on its premise of a decent-looking Grinch whipping up a few festive kills. I can stomach one, maybe two tops, of these homemade holiday horror indies each year. "The Mean One" got that single spot this year, which might have something to do with my charitable mood. If "The Mean One" had instead been last in line among a dozen such films, I probably wouldn't be anywhere near as jolly about it.
NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.
Review Score: 50
It is moderately compelling in the moment, but it has a hard time holding up to even cursory scrutiny as far as believable “found footage” concepts go.