You're a mean one, Mister "Finch! Two drinks for Finch!"
A green, fuzzy creature in a Santa suit slinks down a chimney on Christmas eve. An adorable blonde child wakes, sees the faux Santa destroying her tree and asks "Why, Santa, why?"
Well, it shouldn't, because this horror story which pits Cindy (Krystle Martin) of "Newville" and her new friend "Doc Zeus" (John Bigham) against a green, Christmas-hating monster is a unique creation, and all similarities to a previously existing book, cartoon, or film under copyright protection are unintentional.
The Mean One is a 2022 slasher horror Dark Parody film directed by Steven La Morte.
David Howard Thornton, known for playing Art the Clown in the Terrifier series of films, plays the titular Mean One.
The Mean One provides examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Turns out The Mean One never intended on murdering Cindy's mother; her sudden appearance ended up provoking him, and as a result of Cindy calling him a monster, he internalized that.
- The Alcoholic: "Doc" Zeus, ever since his wife was killed by "The Mean One". He's the only one besides Cindy who publicly professes belief in the monster, but his status as the town drunk makes him easy for the authorities to ignore.
- Amazonian Beauty: Cindy becomes this in her training to kill the Mean One, developing a thick muscular build.
- Asshole Victim: Both the Mayor and the Sheriff died by the Mean One's hands and are responsible for sacrificing people to the creature and gaslighting Cindy, Downplayed with the Sheriff after having a Redemption Equals Death.
- Corrupted Character Copy: The Mean One is what the Grinch would be if his hatred of Christmas was taken to murderous levels.
- Dark Parody: For starters, not even Jim Carrey's version of the character would ever DECAPITATE someone for singing a Christmas song.
- Deconstructive Parody: Other than the monster, the setting is generally realistic. Authorities are (reasonably, at first) unwilling to take the word of a little girl that a green, furry monster in a Christmas suit killed her mom.
- For Want Of A Nail: The story starts about the same, but when an adult wakes to see little Cindy talking to a furry green not-Santa, things escalate quickly, and the monster quickly goes from home invasion to wholesale slaughter.
- Government Conspiracy: Of a small-town government variety. Once the local sheriff and (future) mayor get proof that there is really a mass-murdering cryptid killing Christmas, they immediately begin to cover it up, including Gaslighting poor Cindy into thinking she imagined the whole thing as a trauma-induced hallucination.
- The Grinch: Well, ok. The green, Christmas-hating monster in a Santa suit could be seen as a "Grinch" of sorts. Metaphorically speaking.
- Human Sacrifice: In order to protect their own people, the Mayor and Sheriff begin tricking outsiders into "feeding" the monster by wandering haplessly through its backyard around Christmas.
- I Did What I Had to Do: The Sheriff's justification. Sure, a lot of people died, but as long as they weren't the people HE was sworn to protect, he's still a good guy. Right?
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: It is shown that the Mean One's first killing was unintentional, but once he was seen as a monster, he jumped straight to Then Let Me Be Evil.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Invoked to justify the Sheriff's refusal to investigate the many murders occurring close to, but not actually in, his town. In reality, he knows EXACTLY why people are dying and doesn't want to stop it.
- Training Montage: After being told she has to "learn to hit harder", Cindy goes through a ridiculously rapid montage of exercising, punching dummies, and shooting targets, which somehow makes her badass enough to give the Gr-"Finch! Last call for Finch" a run for its money.
- Writing Around Trademarks: The movie renames many elements that have more obvious Seussian origins, the monster is extremely obviously the Grinch and one of the main characters is an obvious stand-in for his creator, "Dr. Seuss" Geisel. They go so far out of their way to bait-and-switch this detail (said avatar stand-in being named "Dr. Zeus", for one) that it becomes a Running Gag.
