By Ryan Dailey
If Mr. Crocket is not in your Halloween movie rotation, nestled somewhere in the middle of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Shocker, Trick R Treat and Creepshow, are you even doing Halloween correctly? This 2024 film directed by Brandon Epsy deserves a place among these subjective classics.
Mr. Crocket fits right in with classic 1990’s supernatural horror that would beckon us rom the shelves near the back of your local video store, neighboring the unattainable and “Adult’s Only” room. Films all too often try to cash in on nostalgia via resurrecting old franchises and pumping out reboots and remakes ad nauseam. Not this film. This movie gets the enthusiasts of films from the age of the video nasties and straight to VHS era a serious case of the feels.
Avoiding spoilers, Mr. Crocket is the story of a traveling supernatural VHS that the titular villain uses to gain entrance into the homes of children whose parents have failed them in one form or another, eliminate the issue and “adopt” the children into his hellscape of a studio audience.
For once, I do not want to go too deep into the lore of the film, as while there are so many classic tropes in the film, they are executed so well that the viewer needs to experience these first hand.
The practical and creature effects in Mr. Crocket are bar none. The puppets and creatures straddle the line between nightmare fuel and the comical perfectly. What VFX that are done digitally are scarce, and when they do appear, they are so reminiscent of the effects used in the 90’s that the viewer feels as though the movie came from 1992.This leads into the next thing that i loved about the movie. While it is a period piece set in the early 1990’s, the filmmakers never feel the need to shove nostalgia down our throats. Are there references to 90’s icons? Absolutely. Is it front and center like in other movies, absolutely not.
Everything about this film fires on all cylinders. If the viewer goes in with the proper mindset, that is. If one goes into this expecting “elevated” and sophisticated horror where the family is in turmoil and said family faces supernatural forces that are an allegory for their traumas, this is not for you. Go watch Heredity and then go hop on Reddit and provide your long winded breakdown and analysis for karma. If you want a no nonsense, at times genuinely creepy and just a good piece of entertainment, I can not recommend this film enough. The acting on all sides is on point, the direction and cinematography only adds to the atmosphere of it being a love letter to VHS era horror.
Mr. Crocket is a super solid 7.5 out of 10 and is currently streaming on Hulu.