Set in 1993, with a VHS aesthetic and gory practical effects to match, Mr. Crocket spins millennial nostalgia into a perfectly passable supernatural parable. Writer and director Brandon Espy brings new perspective to familiar frights in Hulu's latest Halloween offering, in which Espy expands his own short film of the same name from the Bite Size Halloween anthology series.
The film's cold open introduces us to the titular Mr. Crocket (Elvis Nolasco), a children's TV show host who acts alongside puppets and a small cast of kids who sing songs with their cheerful mentor about sharing and caring and various other kindergarten ethics. A little boy watches Crocket on a VHS tape before heading to the dinner table, where he's cruelly berated by his father while his overworked mom struggles to intervene. This dynamic is undoubtedly recognizable to many a latchkey kid who grew up in the '90s, left to entertain themselves with TV while their parents were at work, and when they weren't at work, they were probably fighting with each other.
Amid the yelling, as the boy's mother retreats to her bedroom for a moment of reprieve, Mr. Crocket crosses over into our world, killing the father with the help of a gnarly anthropomorphized chair before kidnapping the boy. Sometime later, Mr. Crocket begins in earnest: Summer (Jerrika Hinton) is left to raise her son Major (Ayden Gavin) alone when her husband dies suddenly. At the memorial, Major is approached by Rhonda (Kristolyn Lloyd), an unhoused woman who is clearly struggling with drug addiction and mental illness – she is, of course, the mother from the opening scene.
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Rhonda tries and fails to warn Summer and Major about Mr. Crocket, but she's quickly dismissed as a crazy homeless lady with drug problems. Not long after, an overwhelmed Summer stumbles upon the Mr. Crocket VHS tape and gives it to Major to keep him entertained. When an argument between mother and son escalates, Mr. Crocket escapes the analog world and "rescues" Major, and Summer suddenly understands what Rhonda was trying to warn her about.
A Fun '90s Horror Homage That's a Little Too Familiar
As is likely evident by now, there's quite a bit of story going on in Mr. Crocket, which could benefit from removing a plot thread or two. While trying to figure out how to save her son from a supernatural boogeyman, Summer encounters the conspicuously helpful Eddie (Alex Akpobome), whose connection to Crocket seems fairly obvious from the jump.
Espy has a lot of fun with '90s horror tropes, like a microfiche research scene in a library that culminates in a predictable jump scare; it's well-worn territory, but it's also the exact sort of thing you want to see in a '90s horror homage. In embracing those tropes, Mr. Crocket also unfortunately emulates the narrative structure, resulting in predictable developments that the audience sees coming long before the characters do.
Some viewers will inevitably (and erroneously) compare Mr. Crocket to Five Nights at Freddy's given the recency of the latter, even though that movie is about demonic animatronics and is based on a video game in which the premise is basically, "What if the animatronic band from ShowBiz Pizza or Chuck E. Cheese came to life and, like, murdered people?" Mr. Crocket, on the other hand, evokes the surreal puppetry of kids' shows like Pee-wee's Playhouse and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, while its reality-hopping boogeyman antagonist is reminiscent of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Brainscan.
A hyperactive young boy pushes his mum over the edge by continuously playing an old VHS tape of children's television host Mr. Crocket.
- Release Date
- October 11, 2024
- Director
- Brandon Espy
- Rating
- Cast
- Elvis Nolasco , Jerrika Hinton , Kristolyn Lloyd , Ayden Gavin , Alex Alomar Akpobome , Lyla Randall , Jabari Striblin , Riley Vinson
- Runtime
- 88 Minutes
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Writers
- Brandon Espy , Carl Reid
- Distributor(s)
Mr. Crocket is at its best when following Summer and Rhonda, and while Espy doesn't focus too sharply on the '90s war on drugs and the crack epidemic that disproportionately affected Black communities, those themes are clearly on his mind. Espy is not only conjuring a specific era, but also an incredibly specific – and all-too common for the working class – dysfunctional family dynamic exacerbated by socioeconomic struggles. The degree to which he succeeds may very well depend on your own experience, but there are sections of the film, particularly the third act, where those ideas get lost, and the movie is torn between gory, uncanny puppet-horror and social commentary.
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1992's Candyman, which also features a Black boogeyman, is incredibly affecting because of its racial commentary and setting, while Mr. Crocket's attention is divided between allegory and genre. The end result is a convoluted climax that ineffectively humanizes its antagonist while pulling focus from the film's most compelling characters and performances.
As a Hulu horror movie, Mr. Crocket is a relatively entertaining watch with enjoyably goopy and gross practical effects and a clear affection for the slasher movies adored by '90s latchkey kids. It'd be much easier to criticize Espy's film had it been given a theatrical release, or if it didn't have such an attractive 88-minute runtime, but as it stands, Mr. Crocket largely accomplishes what it sets out to do, even if it leaves you wishing it had loftier ambitions. Mr. Crocket debuts on Hulu Oct. 11, 2024, and you can watch the trailer below:
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