- "Samantha is his dream. Lucas is his nightmare."
Little Evil is a 2017 Netflix original Horror Comedy film directed by Eli Craig.
Gary (Adam Scott) has just married Samantha (Evangeline Lilly), the love of his life. There's just one problem. She has an... unusual son. As in, "has supernatural abilities and might be The Antichrist" unusual. Now, he has to stop the coming apocalypse while maintaining his marriage, despite the fact that he might have to kill his stepson.
This film contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: Deconstructed. Al is played by a cisgender woman, but is otherwise a typical man in every way. His gender is not questioned in-universe, he's addressed with he/him pronouns and male nouns and titles, and the Viewer Gender Confusion stems entirely from the casting choice. This was a deliberate choice made by Eli Craig to support gender fluidity
. - The Antichrist: Here, the Antichrist is supposed to be sacrificed to be a vessel for Satan to usher in the End himself. In the end, Lucas becomes an Anti Anti Christ.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lampshaded by the Satanic cultist who works in Child Protective Services, who says she's just a sweet, little old lady after exposing her true allegiance.
- Brick Joke: Gary is the Keymaster. He literally has the keys to everywhere because he's in real estate
- Creator Cameo: Eli Craig appears as a guy with a clipboard at a soapbox derby.
- Demonic Possession: Satan's goal to usher in the apocalypse involves possessing Lucas after he's killed.
- Disney Villain Death: Reverend Gospel is knocked into the Hell portal he tried to force Lucas into.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Reverend Gospel, leader of Satan's cult, acts as this due to his master being stuck in Hell.
- Easily Forgiven: Played for laughs when Lucas and Gary each apologize for trying to kill one another.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Satan, Reverend Gospel and his cult's ultimate goal is to bring about the apocalypse.
- Enfante Terrible: Lucas, who does things like convince his science teacher to commit suicide, sets his birthday clown on fire and buries his stepdad alive. He gets better.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The entire plot, down to Lucas's very existence, is a scheme by Satan to bring the End of Days.
- Heel–Face Turn: After some father-son bonding time, Lucas decides he doesn't want to kill Gary or destroy the world anymore.
- Hollywood Satanism: The cult is planning to bring about the apocalypse, as usual, but their ultimate goal is to kill the Antichrist so that Satan can take full control of his body.
- How We Got Here: The film opens with Samantha saving Gary from being Buried Alive by Lucas, then cuts to a week earlier.
- Hypocritical Humor: Gozamel chastises Al for suggesting harming a goat during his plot to kill a child.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Gary and Al's first response to learning that the Lucas is the Antichrist is to go to a bar.
- Karma Houdini: A Running Gag in the film is that Lucas keeps getting comically minor punishments for heinous acts, such as suspension for driving his science teacher to suicide.
- Kubrick Stare: Lucas' signature expression.
- Mama Bear: Antichrist or not, Sam will not let anyone hurt her child. She's the one who decks Reverend Gospel in the end, sending him to hell.
- Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal: Samantha takes this to ridiculous levels. Despite all glaring evidence to the contrary, she consistently refuses to believe there's anything evil about Lucas. Even when Lucas buries Gary alive, she puts the blame on Gary.
- Man on Fire: A clown accidentally sets himself aflame at Lucas's birthday party.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Gary after giving Lucas weighted floaties that would cause him to drown. He almost immediately goes after him to save him.
- Never My Fault: A variation of a parent covering for her child is played for laughs. Samantha almost never blames Lucas for his psychotic and murderous actions, and tries to shift the blame from him to Gary.
- Offing the Offspring: Well, stepson in this case. Gary nearly kills Lucas by giving him floaties filled with sand to drown him. He immediately has a My God, What Have I Done? and saves him.
- Our Demons Are Different: These are giant, flaming, skeletal monsters who are trapped in hell and can only escape via sacrificing half-demon children.
- Papa Wolf: It takes some time but Gary becomes this in the end, braving a Satanic cult and the Devil himself to save his stepson.
- Parental Abandonment: Gary mentions his own dad abandoned him when he was a kid. He shares with Lucas that after he tracked his dad down, his dad told him he wouldn't amount to anything.
- Rage Breaking Point: After Lucas buries Gary, Gary demands to get a divorce and vents out his frustrations about Lucas just after Samantha frees him, even telling her that Lucas is the Anti-Christ but she doesn't believe him and puts the blame on him.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the portal to Hell is actually opened, the cultists flee in terror.
- Shout-Out:
- Lucas bears more then a passing resemblance to Damien from the The Omen films.
- Al gave Gary a Woody Woodpecker statuette for his wedding.
- Lucas is seen putting his hand on a static TV in a direct parody of Poltergeist.
- Gozamel bullshits a prophecy of "the Key Master," explicitly citing Ghostbusters (1984) as inspiration.
- Al cites Field of Dreams as a good thing related to cornfields.
- Sinister Minister: The leader of the Satanic cult trying to bring Hell to Earth makes his money as a televangelist.
- Tempting Fate: Gozamel tells Gary that he doesn't need to wear a seatbelt in his van since it's the end of the world. When they get into a car accident, Gozamel dies after being thrown from the car, since he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Gozamel the demon hunter who dies a few minutes after being introduced.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The cultist who works in Protective Services isn't seen again after Gary knocks her out.
- Would Hit a Girl: Gary decks an elderly woman cultist while trying to save Lucas. His fellow stepdads immediately make fun of this. When she gets back up, he decks her again with a piece of wood.
- You're Not My Father: A common problem Gary hears from his fellow stepdads is that the lack of respect they get from their step-kids.
