Hello everyone, I hope everyone has been having a wonderful holiday season so far. It always manages to boggle my brain that it's this part of the year that seems to go so quick. I guess it's cause everyone's in a super go-go state of mind cause of the holidays. It just seems like yesterday that it was the beginning of 2022. But here we are in the throes of Christmas. Usually, I'm in the festive mood. But it seems like as each year goes by, Christmas always manages to get jump started earlier and earlier. I mean this year, we literally had Halloween, Thanskgiving, and Christmas decorations out at the same time. Absolutely boggling.
Don't get me wrong that may seem like I'm a bit of a Gri...Scrooge. I'm not. I enjoy the holidays and the time get to spend with family. One of the things that always never fails is that it gives us reason to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, and The Grinch for the umpteenth time. For the horror side of things, you could probably count Christmas Vacation in the category alongside Krampus. It seems like there's always a new Christmas movie to watch.
The Grinch is one that I enjoy watching it. I always remembered watching the cartoon classic for so many years before that came out. So when my Grandma was like 'It's time for us to go as a family to the movies.'. I was a bit hesitant. I couldn't for the life of me imagine how they'd adapt things to live action. But they managed to do a decent job. Jim Carrey stole the show, of course. But over the years, it started to lose its shine to me a little bit.
Earlier this year, we had begun hearing word of films being made that take a different spin to our childhood IPs. One of the most well known ones was Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey being announced. Immediately, I was very intrigued. I was ready to see the approach they were going to take to the material. These adaptations are a bit small scale, but that's okay. As we've seen so far in this genre, it's not the size of the budget that counts. It all comes down to execution. Terrifier 2 is a superb example of this.
Another horror spin on a childhood story was a different look at the Gri....well, let's call him The Mean One. It was announced back in October of this year with some helping release it. At the time when that happened, I imagined it was going to be a small scale release and it'd be dropped onto YouTube. I mean this is an unofficial take on a Dr. Seuss classic after all.
But no, it was decided to go big or go home. It was released into theaters this past Friday. Some may have had the chance to see it and some may hold off to see reviews. I had the pleasure of checking it out and have been holding off on things. I wanted to give people the chance that were interested to give it a check before we could sit down and talk about it.
If you haven't seen it yet and are interested, I'd definitely say go check it out if you can. It's an interesting experiment. That's honestly one of the biggest things about these horror adaptations I can applaud. Take a story and spin it.
For those that don't know, here's the lowdown of The Mean One:
In the sleepy mountain town of Newville, Cindy witnesses the murder of her parents by a blood-thirsty green figure in a red Santa suit. Twenty years later, the Christmas-hating monster begins to terrorize the town once more. Cindy finds new purpose in stopping the creature and saving the holiday.
I have seen others in our community talk about this film. I haven't checked out those reviews as I didn't want it to influence my outlook on things. This past week, it was a bit of a rough one. My partner came down with the Flu. So, we took the time to sit down and throw this on. They love the Jim Carrey Grinch. After they saw the trailer, they were incredibly interested in checking this out.
The Mean One is definitely something that I'll be returning to for the Christmas season. The approach to the film is a bit small. I honestly didn't mind that. It honestly felt like those old Sci-Fi original films back when they were good. Once Sci-Fi became SYFY, they started to lose themselves a little. We have seen some that have been a bit of a return to form, Slumber Party Massacre '21 and Banana Splits looking at you. So to find that unique sense return, it made me smile.
The Mean One isn't going to be a film for everybody. That is incredibly clear. If you are someone going in and have high expectations, you'll be disappointed. If you go in with an open mind, you have a chance you'll like it. If you enjoyed the old Sci-FI channel movies, you may like it. That's the thing about films these days is that each person can have a different experience than another.
Okay with that now out of the way, I really dug The Mean One. All of the little easter eggs in the film were fun. I mean there were a few different ones that alluded to a Seuss-verse going on. That was really cool. There's a character that is called Doctor Zeus. Really on the nose, but the character is super cool. The narration is something that I wasn't sure I was going to dig at first. But over the course of the film with its small uses, the performance is fantastic. It is a wonderful Anthony Hopkins-like. It definitely establishes that there is a love for the source material as well as for The Grinch.
David Howard Thornton is in this movie. That was something that I knew going in. I was really interested to see what could be done with him. I wasn't sure exactly how they were going to approach The Grinch. But the way that the film handles it, I definitely dug it. He's a bit more quiet than many would like. I'm sure that there will be some that won't like it for that. But this is a bit more of a naturalistic approach to The Grinch. So, he's not talk talk talking his way through things. He's quieter. And honestly, that's a bit more unnerving for me. But one of the coolest thing is seeing how the film incorporates the Carrey-isms into things.
The rest of the cast delivers some good performances. Are these award winning performances? No. Do I feel like we've been spoiled in Horror this year with amazing performances? Yes. Again, these felt home in a SCI-FI Channel Original approach. But again, everyone gives it their all.
Going by the trailer, it felt like this was a more slasher take on the material. That is true. One of the highlights for me was a bar scene. If you've seen the film, you know what I'm talking about. As that sequence was going on, my brain couldn't help but insert Jim Carrey singing Mr. Grinch. It just put such a smile on my face. For the most part, I'd say that this could be a bit of a thriller than flat out horror slasher. The one thing with this that took me out of it was the gore. Would I have loved lots of blood flying? With this material, I don't know if we needed all out gore. But what we get in the film is a bit of CG-blood. Lots and lots of CG-blood. It hit a point where it felt extremely over the top.
My partner really liked the humor throughout. The changes that were made to adapt the story also made them laugh. And the lighting changes that occurred from the dark blues to more warm colors were well done. However, they thought that there was more that could have been done. And I'd definitely agree as there were a plot hole here and there.
Overall, I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to. It had some aspects where there is a love for the material. It's extremely clear. Would it be interesting to see more of this world that's set up in the film? Yeah. Will that happen? Honestly, I don't think so. The Mean One is a bit fun. It does have some pacing issues. There were some moments that felt like things could have been tightened up a little more. But overall, I'd be more than happy to return to this for another visit.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
