Movie Review: 'The Mean One' Rips off The Grinch for Goofy Horror Fun

The Mean One (2022)

Directed by Steven LaMorte

Written by Steven LaMorte, Flip Kobler

Starring Krystle Martin, David Howard Thornton, Chase Mullins

Release Date December 9th, 2022

Published December 8th, 2022

The Mean One is a fully unauthorized horror parody of The Grinch that skirts the law by never actually saying the word 'Grinch.' How willing you are to accept this is a strong measure of how you will take this movie. The film takes the concept of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and turns The Grinch into a monster who accidentally murder's Cindy Lou's mom while he steals Christmas. Thus a begins a long term effort to destroy Christmas by killing anyone who exhibits even the faintest form of Christmas cheer.

The Mean One, aka The Grinch, is played by Terrifier 2 star David Howard Thornton who essays yet another brilliantly physical and silent performance. He's a truly incredible physical performer, even as much of his performance in this very silly film is a parody of Jim Carrey's 2000's live action Grinch, crossed with a little bit of Art the Clown. It's mimicry but, at times, it's quite darkly funny mimicry. Thornton is the best thing about this very silly, extremely low budget horror flick.

As mentioned, The Mean One proceeds from an accidental murder. Cindy Lou, played as an adult Krystle Martin, interrupts The Grinch as he is stealing Christmas. Her mother enters the scene to protect her daughter and accidentally dies. Years later, The Grinch has been stealing Christmas from this small town, and killing to do so, while Cindy and her father fled the town. Returning years later to sell their home, they find a town that has banned Christmas and harbors The Grinch as a deep dark secret.

Unaware of the ban on Christmas, Cindy's dad becomes an immediate target of The Grinch by putting up Christmas lights. This eventually leads to Cindy training to kill The Grinch with the help of the grizzled town drunk, and a helpful young Deputy named Burke (Chase Mullins), whose also unaware of why the town has banned Christmas. In between all of that, there are several horrific murders, rendered less than horrific by some truly Dollar Store levels of special effects.

The Mean One thrives on low budget charm. If you don't find the cheap effects and hammy performances charming and funny, you won't enjoy The Mean One. I can certainly understand not enjoying this movie at all as it isn't great. That said, the cheapness and some of the very silly choices, like Cindy Lou's ludicrous training montage, and Howard's aping of Jim Carrey's physicality, make The Mean One modestly entertaining. It's not a good movie but it is a strangely watchable movie.

I don't normally go for things that take kids stuff and renders it as horror. That said, The Mean One is so ludicrously, cartoonishly cheap that I didn't mind the transgressions against a children's classic. I don't recommend letting kids watch this, but, like another recent holiday horror movie, Violent Night, it's far too silly to be harmful to anyone. Fans of Dr. Seuss may find The Mean One deeply offensive, the movie is certainly not respectful of the source material, but again, for me, The Mean One is just to silly too take seriously enough to be upsetting.

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