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It’s now officially a thing to turn a kids’ movie into a B-movie horror flick, whether it’s “The Banana Splits Movie” (2019), featuring the likes of Fleegle and Bingo. As the deranged robot killer of the upcoming “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” “Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare” and “Bambi: Reckoning” — and this week’s “Despicable Ones,” it’s a Chilling, hilariously violent, and unauthorized cinematic splatter flick featuring “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” with some dark laughs and a high-spirited silliness of David Howard Thornton as the titular green creature Insanely acted, but ultimately superfluous and dull.
Director Steven LaMotte and screenwriters Finn and Flip Kobler sidestepped any direct quotes or references to Dr. Seuss, and “Despicable Ones” opens with narrator Christopher Saunders , which sounds more like Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter than Boris Karloff, intones, “Remember that about Cindy, you know who…they love their Christmas festival, those people in town, but if I say, that’s not how it happened,” as we see in the prologue, an intruder dressed as Santa kills little Cindy’s mother in front of little Cindy, oops !
Cut to nearly 20 years later, an adult Cindy (Crystal Martin) and her father (co-writer Flip Kerber) return to the town of Newell’s to sell the house (which they put in been there for so many years?) and Cindy can achieve some kind of closure to help her deal with PTSD. They learn that the entire town has steadfastly avoided celebrating the holiday in any way, shape, or form for the past two decades – with everyone blaming Cindy and what she claims is the shaggy green monster for killing Christmas.
When Cindy and her dad defy the town’s stupid ban and decorate the house with wreaths, trees, lights, etc., it draws out the “scumbags” from the nearby mountains, and we say what if Cindy bought her dad something for Christmas Festival, she will return them.
“Despicable Ones” introduces some of the quintessential horror movie characters, from the bumbling but earnest cop (Chase Mullins) who has a crush on Cindy to the mischievous old sheriff (Eric Baker) who tries not to roll his eyes. The story of a green monster, and an obnoxious mayor (Amy Schumacher) who is running for re-election, is worse for bad publicity than the growing body count in and around town.
David Howard Thornton, who rose to fame as Art the Clown in the “horror” movies, did a great job of turning the Grinch, I mean the Green Goblin, into a gleeful monster slayer (the makeup job is fantastic ) has some movement, but the characters are one-dimensional and drawn thinly. (Alas, the acting by the protagonists is dull and unconvincing.)
“Despicable Ones” has some inspired lines, like, “It’s time to roast the beast!” But the production values, editing, soundtrack, and cinematography are average at best, and we’re left with a film that will be largely made of cleverly twisted be remembered as a marketing hook.
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