The Mean One (2023)
Directed by Steven LaMorte
More than a decade after she witnessed her mom’s slaying one Christmas Eve, a twentysomething Cindy (Krystle Martin) and her dad (Flip Kobler) move back to Newville to sell off the house where the murder took place. Back then, nobody believed Cindy when she claimed her mom was killed by a giant green monster. And this time, when she sees The Mean One (David Howard Thornton) again, she’s met with the same skepticism. Only a rookie deputy (Chase Mullins) and an old drunk (John Bigham) believe her story. The longer the town waits to believe Cindy, the more of its citizens will die at the hands of the…the…the…the Grinch!
Actually, the movie hilariously avoids saying the word “Grinch,” for copyright reasons. But they find some fun ways around it. Unfortunately, skirting lawsuits is about the only thing “The Mean One” has any fun with. For one, its cinematography is too dark and washed out. It turns the saturation way down, without having the guts to try something artistic and film in black and white. But it might as well have, for as colorless as it was. And if it looked boring, it sounded worse. “The Mean One” has a score by Yael Benamour that isn’t bad, but it also likes to trot out public domain Christmas tunes. I couldn’t tell if “The Mean One” was trying to be comedic, but I found myself laughing at it more than I was laughing with it.
Some movies don’t let the limitations of their budget stop them. The “Terrifier” movies, for instance, lived up to their name by terrifying audiences into fainting or vomiting in theaters without the big budgets of slashers who aren’t half as good. And while “The Mean One” sees star David Howard Thornton miming his way through another nonverbal slasher role, this movie is never able to exceed its small budget like “Terrifier” (and, even more so, “Terrifier 2″) did. In “The Mean One,” you can count the good kills on one hand. Maybe a couple of fingers. And unlike better movies, the kills here are over in the blink of an eye. If these practical effects were any good, the filmmakers wouldn’t have been so anxious to pull the camera away so soon.
Despite this, Thornton does what he can. He picks up some of the cutesy mannerisms the Grinch has always been known for: putting his hands on his hips, crawling across the floor on his fingertips, cutting women in half at the waist for daring to mail Christmas presents. Krystle Martin’s background as a stunt performer (she even played Black Widow at Disney World) prepared her for the third act of this flick, but she seemed less comfortable with the more human touches. One half-decent performance comes from John Bigham, who plays a town drunk with a familiar look…a white beard, pot belly, and red flannel shirt.
Have I mentioned the narrator who speaks in rhyming couplets, each rhyme more desperate than the last? That’s “The Mean One,” for you. It’s like a fruitcake—packed full of the worst things you could think to put in a slasher movie, without any of the things you like.
2.5/10
Cinema or Cine-meh 