Here’s a low budget horror film that tries hard to be a FRIDAY THE 13^th clone, but falls short of that goal. The movie’s got all the clichés, bad acting, and poor scripting that plague the worst of the slasher films. But it’s got plenty of laughs (unintentional, of course). You see, the killer (Milo) is a little kid who possesses the strength of an adult. The kid goes around attacking the heroines friends and manhandling the grownups. The filmmakers intended the scenes of Milo beating up the adults to be horrific, but you can’t help but laugh at it. So with that aspect in mind, the movie can be somewhat enjoyable. This film is worthy of the Mystery Science Theater treatment. Sterling tries hard to market the film by using the packaging and trailer to compare the pint-sized terror Milo to Jason and Freddy. But this strategy (which has been done countless times, I might add) doesn’t work.

The film stars Jennifer Jostlyn as the heroine Claire, whom everyone thinks is crazy because she is the only one to see this phantom youngster. Vincent (LORD OF ILLUSIONS) Shiavelli plays Dr. Jeeders, an abortion doctor who is also Milo’s father. Antonio (THE BORROWER) Fargas, Huggy Bear himself, is Kelso, the school janitor and one of Claire’s only allies. Raven Kelly, Paula Cale, and Maya Mclaughlin are Claire’s friends Kendra, Marian, and Abigail respectively ("friends" in this film translates to victims). Richard Portnow portrays investigating officer Lt. Parker.

In the early sixties, the neighborhood creep Milo, invites little girl Claire and her girl friends to his father’s house (where for some reason he keeps fetuses in jars) to show them the jars containing embryos (why little 12 year old girls want to see that, I don’t know). Before you know it, there is an accident, with Milo seriously injuring one of Claire’s friends.

Cut to the present, the little psycho Milo has supposedly drowned years ago in a swimming mishap. Claire is now a teacher at her old school, and she starts to see a little kid with a yellow raincoat and hood (Milo’s old MO), riding through the school grounds on a rotting bicycle. Strange events begin to occur, and when one of Claire’s childhood friends Abigail, is murdered right after Claire leaves the apartment, the police (led by Lt. Parker) suspect that Claire is somehow involved. Claire begins to put the pieces together (even though the audience knows everything right from the onset), and when she tells the police that the killer is a little kid who died several years ago, the police immediately think she’s a crackpot, as do her remaining friends, who are then systematically dispatched one by one.

Claire finds an ally in Kelso, the school janitor, who has known Claire since she attended school there as a kid. When Milo bravely enters the school building in an attempt to kill Claire, Kelso stumbles across Milo, who then proceeds to beat up the janitor unmercifully. Claire, scared to death and out of options, calls on Milo’s gynecologist father Dr. Jeeter to aid her in stopping his son. He reluctantly agrees, but first insists they take the bloody Kelso to his office for treatment. Claire blindly accepts Dr. Jeeter’s word, and they head for Dr. Jeeter’s office.

As they arrive at Dr. Jeeter’s office and the doctor "attends" to Kelso wounds, Claire starts rummaging through the house for some clues about Milo. She finds the embryo jars that the demented doctor keeps in his office. Dr. Jeeter, having disposed of Kelso, now turns his attentions to Claire, whom he sees as responsible for the death of his son. Too bad Milo is not really dead, he stills lives in the attic of his father’s house the whole time. Now is the time that Milo has waiting for; he has his prey in his own father’s house. Let the predictable mayhem begin.

Doesn’t sound too bad does it? But there is a lot to laugh at here besides the little kid beating up the adults. Richard Portnow’s portrayal of Lt. Parker is painfully bad, as he tries to imitate Dennis Franz (but with an annoying, fake southern accent). Of course, it was the script writer (Craig Mitchell) who put the cheesy dialog into Portnow’s mouth so he should share the blame. The conclusion where they reveal Milo’s face (complete with the poorest makeup job I’ve seen in a while) and the mystery surrounding him is quite humorous. Surprisingly, cult film enthusiasts will be disappointed with the lack of nudity and special effects. There is only one truly bloody scene in the whole movie and that’s when we see Milo slit the throat of Claire’s friend, Abigail. The rest of the movie’s effects look cheap and are unconvincing and are worth a few laughs because of it.

The film does manage to generate some suspense, mostly thanks to the performances of Jennifer Jostlyn, Antonio Fargas, and Vincent Shiavelli (although Vincent’s character is not given too much to work with here). But the suspense does not hold up for too long due to the poor pacing and unintentional humor. In an in-joke bit, Fargas gets to pimp-slap Milo in a nod to the Huggy Bear character he played on BARRETTA. Like all slasher flicks, we get an ending left open for a sequel, but frankly, I don’t see it happening.

SIGHT

Sterling releases MILO to DVD on a full frame (1.33.1) presentation. However, because the movie was filmed for VHS and cable release in mind, there is no cropping of the image. Overall the transfer is very sharp and well defined. Color reproduction is vivid, though the film was purposely lensed without any bright colors in an effort to give the film a dark and grim tone. The blacks and shadow detail are very good and director of photography Yuri Neyman takes advantage of this in the cinematography. The school interiors look very shadowy and atmospheric. In fact most of the film is dark and devoid of color which helps make the film more foreboding. The detail level is also excellent, except those scenes the filmmakers do not want you to see (such as the fact that they keep Milo’s face hidden for most of the movie by placing shadows on it). The film does not have a glossy, Hollywood-style luster, it has more of a gritty and dreary tone. In all exterior scenes there is no sunlight, it’s all cloudy and dreary in every shot. Too bad the script and direction cannot match the simplistic quality of the visuals.

SOUND

A pretty good Dolby Digital 2.0 surround mix, with the rear speakers providing subtle ambiance. This is mostly a dialog driven film without action set pieces that require large amounts of sound field activity or bass. The forward soundstage is very crisp and clear with dialog emanating from the center channel. While there are no pops, hissing or dropouts, there are some scenes with background noise. It sounds like when they recorded a particular scene, they left the microphone sensitivity up too high thus background noises (like street traffic) are audible even on the interior scenes! Composer Kevin Manthei managed to produce some simplistic, though haunting musical themes for the film, though they are somewhat overused. The chilling music cuts through the sound field nicely, and even comes through on the rear speakers. Except for the background noise problem, this is a solid 2.0 surround sound soundtrack.

FEATURES

Talent Bios are for actors Vincent Schiavelli, Antonio Fargas, and Paula Cale. The full frame theatrical trailer is in stereo surround and is 1 minute 45 seconds long. The video quality of the trailer is not as good as the quality of the feature. The trailer boasts "look out Freddy, look out Jason, there is a new kid in town". Oh yeah, that’ll work.

CONCLUSION

MILO is a slow-paced, generic slasher thriller minus the cult elements (such as T&A, SFX, etc.) and with lots of unintentional humor. So if you are in the right frame of mind, and you want to get together with some friends for some laughs, you may want to rent MILO. The films strengths, the haunting cinematography and atmosphere, and the sinister soundtrack translate well to DVD. Sterling does a good job of making a mediocre film look and sound better by properly remastering the film on DVD.

MILO is available at DVDEmpire

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