“The Mean One” falls short in its attempt to join the ranks of the increasingly popular horror fairy tale sub-genre. In a time when films like “Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey” have successfully blended the whimsical and the macabre, this movie fails to deliver the same captivating experience. While it may feature a devilish Grinch played by a phoned-in performance from David Howard Thornton (Terrifier 1&2), he doesn’t possess the same gravitas and grit here as he did playing Art The Clown.
The Mean One (David Howard Thornton) is a hairy, green-skinned grump in a Santa suit, living on a mountain high above the town of Newville, despising the holiday season. Young Cindy You-Know-Who (Krystle Martin), whose parents were butchered by The Mean One twenty Christmases earlier, is returning to town to seek closure… but when the Mean One launches a new reign of terror that threatens to destroy Christmas, Cindy finds a bold new purpose – trapping and killing the monster.
Synopsis
One of the primary issues with “The Mean One” is its inability to strike a chord between horror and the fairy tale elements, as others that came before it. “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” is an obvious horror adaptation that should have been a bigger success and more suspenseful than it was. The film should be up there with Krampus; instead, it fluttered into obscurity with cringe-worthy dialogue.
It’s astonishing to see how bad this adaptation turned out, especially with David Howard Thornton and the producers coming off a high from the success of Terrifier 2. The characters felt cold, and for the most part, they acted like they were only there to get killed in the movie, and the performances showed that. With more horror adaptations coming from classic fairy tales made for children. We may want to take a step back and remember its quality over quantity.
You can check out the movie here: www.themeanonemovie.com/watch
Overall Grade: 0/5 Stars
