“Mr. Crocket” immediately grabs the viewer with Elvis Nolasco’s performance of a welcoming persona and friendly television show host — one that belies an alternate, killer persona.
The movie begins with a family seated at a dinner table when Mr. Crocket, played by Nolasco, interacts with the family during dinner and carries out a brutal murder.
Set in 1993, the film follows a mother named Summer, played by Jerrika Hinton, who embarked on a journey to rescue her son Major from a children’s show host affectionately known as “Mr. Crocket” by his child audience.
The following 80 minutes of film depict various ways to end a person’s life through both grotesque and creative means.
“Mr. Crocket” arrived to Hulu Oct. 11 as part of its Huluween 2024 line-up. Brandon Espy, the writer and director of the film, expanded on the original 2022 short film by the same name, which appeared in Hulu’s Bite Size Halloween series.
“Once they (Hulu) gave me the okay to pitch this feature outline, I just got inspired to build out that Crocket world and see where it could go from there,” said Espy during an interview on the In Love with Horror podcast.
Espy professed that the idea of losing a child to an entertainment screen, television show hosts becoming surrogate parents and the memory of ‘90s media that surrounded missing children fueled Espy’s inspiration for the film.. He played on the Idea of Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood and Peewee’s Playhouse, but merged them with the horror genre.
M.K. Asante, a screenwriting and animation professor at Morgan State University, described the gore of the opening scene and many others as having “sinister creativity.”
“People who write in horror have to constantly think about new ways to slaughter people because so much of it has been done before,” said Asante. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen someone put a plate of food in someone’s cut stomach.”
The film also delves into social commentary, about a parent’s ability — or lack thereof — to raise their child and the fear of a a television show host superseding a parent’s important to their child. The film goes on to address themes of neglectful parenting and familial dysfunction.
“It’s not about just watching your kids, but what are your kids watching?” said Elvis Nolasco, who plays Mr. Crocket in the film.
During the film, Espy shares Crocket’s origin story, his reason for killings and introduces viewers to one of the two plot twists of the film, which grants perspective to who Crocket was outside of television.
Espy uses visuals through composition, bold and deft lighting choices and a gleeful merge of practical and visual effects to tell his tale. His renderings provide a look into Crocket’s existence within the TV screen and the effervescent terrors part of his world. a
The film’s ending, while unsurprising, leaves room to ponder the world in which Crocket resides behind the television screen.
Soul Stradford, a junior screenwriting and animation, said the film reminded him of Amanda the Adventurer, an indie horror game released in 2022.
“I really do enjoy the movie as a whole but growing up watching different types of horror, I didn’t really get the horror aspect or suspense of the story.” said Stradford, a student at Morgan State.
Mr. Crocket is rated R and is one of the featured films included in Hulu’s curated list of content for the month of October.
