Little Evil (2017)
Directed by Eli Craig
No — Little Evil is not woke, scoring 7 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Eli Craig's Little Evil arrives with a premise borrowed wholesale from The Omen and a demeanor borrowed from a mid-tier sitcom.
Consciousness Markers
The cast includes Donald Faison and dwarf actor Brad Williams in supporting roles, but their presence is incidental to the comedy and carries no representational commentary.
Evangeline Lilly plays a single mother who defends her son, but the film is a stepfather-comedy and makes no feminist argument.
This is a broad horror-comedy that aims to amuse rather than preach; there is no moralizing lecture energy.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext appear anywhere in the film.
The film engages no racial themes or commentary whatsoever.
There is no environmental or climate content in the film.
Gary's job as a real estate agent is a plot convenience, not a critique of capitalism or wealth.
Bridget Everett's casting is not accompanied by any body-positivity messaging or theme.
Lucas's quietness and counseling are framed as demonic-Antichrist material, not as neurodivergence.
The film is a comedic parody of The Omen and makes no historical claims to revise.
Why it received this score
Eli Craig's Little Evil arrives with a premise borrowed wholesale from The Omen and a demeanor borrowed from a mid-tier sitcom. Adam Scott plays Gary, a newlywed real estate agent who suspects his stepson Lucas of being the Antichrist, and the film spends its runtime oscillating between domestic comedy and mild supernatural mischief. The stepfather support group is a pleasant enough conceit. The clown immolates himself on schedule. We have seen this before, and we will see it again, and the film seems dimly aware of this without being troubled by it.
On the matter of social consciousness, the film is a near-total abstention. There is no romantic or identity material of any kind, no racial commentary, no environmental sermon, no critique of wealth despite Gary's profession. Evangeline Lilly's Samantha defends her son with some vigor, though the film frames her as a mother in a stepfather comedy and declines to build any argument on top of that. Bridget Everett appears as Al and the film makes no thematic use of her presence. Lucas's silence and his trips to a counselor are treated as evidence of demonic lineage, not as anything resembling a neurological or developmental condition. Donald Faison and Brad Williams turn up in supporting roles, and the film lets them be funny without asking them to carry any representational weight.
The picture is a parody, which grants it certain immunities. It has no history to revise, no system to indict, no congregation to lecture. Its ambitions extend to a water park finale and a soap box derby, and it achieves both. As a specimen of cultural messaging it is close to inert, a comedy that wants only to amuse and largely does. We are left with the curious spectacle of a film about the Antichrist that has nothing to say about the world. Refreshing, in its way. Also a little empty.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Gary, who has just married Samantha, the woman of his dreams, discovers that her six-year-old son may be the Antichrist.
Questions about Little Evil
Is Little Evil woke?
No — Little Evil is not woke, scoring 7 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Little Evil have any woke elements?
Very few. None of the 10 markers reaches 30, the level where a marker counts as present; the highest is Representation Casting at 22.
How does Little Evil compare to other 2017 movies?
It ranks #208 of the 309 films from 2017 we've scored; their average is 19. The wokest is I Am Not Your Negro (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.