This Huluween, writer-director Brandon Espy makes his feature directorial debut with Mr. Crocket, which he co-wrote with Carl Reid (Grounded). The film is based on his 2022 short of the same name featured in the third season of Hulu’s Bite Size Halloween series. If you thought that glimpse of the titular TV personality was terrifying, get ready for the stuff of nightmares.
Set in 1993, the story follows Summer (Jerrika Hinton), a newly single mother raising her young son Major (Ayden Gavin). In the midst of mourning her husband’s untimely death, she’s faced with the typical struggles of parenthood made all the more difficult as a one-income household. Major behaves like most kids who don’t know how to process emotions yet, getting an attitude from time to time, not realizing how hard his mother works to keep them fed and sheltered. His unruliness only gets worse now that Summer’s on her own.
One day a little book nook (like those free “take a book, leave a book” library boxes) suddenly appears in front of their house. Inside is a VHS of Mr. Crocket’s World, a 70s/80s-era fictional kids show. Desperate for some semblance of peace, Summer doesn’t take the time to question where it came from and just pops in the tape. To her relief, Major immediately becomes enthralled and gives his full attention to the kindly Mr. Crocket (Elvis Nolasco) and his puppet friends.
After watching the tape nonstop (for an unidentified amount of days), Summer shuts it off and takes it away. Major responds like most kids whose precious TV time is interrupted. His mini tantrum quickly turns into a fight, harsh things are said, and mother and son go to bed on unpleasant terms. This is the catalyst for horrors to come.
Mr. Crocket’s World is a deranged version of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The mustachioed, bow tie and sweater vest-wearing host sings and dances with his child “co-stars” a la Barney & Friends. Michelle Patterson’s (Appendage) set design for the in-world show resembles a mix of Mr. Rogers’ welcoming home and a toy store with the extra zaniness of Pee-wee’s Playhouse and H.R. Pufnstuf. In other words, what appears on screen is an exciting, colorful dreamland for kids and an obnoxious, slightly unsettling sight for parents.
Via his catchy song lyrics, written by Alex Winkler (Molli and Max in the Future), Mr. Crocket promises viewers at home, “Whenever you’re in trouble, you can call on me, I’ll be there to protect you in a heartbeat.” He follows through on that promise for kids with bad home lives, killing their parent(s) and then luring them into his parent-free analog dimension.
The film opens with one of Crocket’s murder-kidnappings. He comes out of the TV to teach an abusive stepfather (Akim Black) a lesson, killing him in a gruesome fashion and taking a boy named Darren (Jabari Striblin). His mother Rhonda (Kristolyn Lloyd) is left traumatized but determined to bring him back home. She teams up with Summer, along with another parent of a lost child, Eddie (Alex Akpobome), to find out where Crocket’s keeping their kids.
Despite the otherworldly circumstances, Summer doesn’t react the way one would expect. Yes, she’s scared, angry, devastated, and frustrated, but that doesn’t always come across in her actions and expressions. Then again, she just lost her husband and has now witnessed a man crawl out of a television set and kidnap her son. It’s reasonable for her to be consumed by shock and grief.
The police assume Major ran away because she’s an unfit mother, not bothering to take a minute and consider this could be connected to other missing child cases. Something Jerrika Hinton does very well is convey the utter exhaustion of single parenthood. Her character is struggling to deal with her son’s behavioral changes, finally has a breaking point and yells at him, and the next thing she knows he’s been taken by a demonic TV show host.
Elvis Nolasco completely steals the show as Mr. Crocket. The frequency with which he subtly changes his tone is genuinely creepy. The silly father figure persona fades every time his smile slips and the sinister predator is revealed. We don’t learn his full backstory or real motivations for punishing awful parents until the third act, making him all the more mysterious.
In Mr. Crocket, Brandon Espy expands his creepy six-minute short into a fun and frightening feature film that captures the eeriness of analog horror with static and distortion, made all the scarier by Elvis Nolasco’s captivating performance that will stay with you after the film. Fans of Channel Zero’s first season “Candle Cove” will love the similar uneasiness of the imagery.
Mr. Crocket makes its world premiere September 26 at Fantastic Fest and hits Hulu on October 11, 2024.
