Dir. Mervyn LeRoy (1956)
After a little girl's schoolmate dies, her mother starts to believe that her daughter may have been responsible.
Pop psychology has always been rife for discussion in horror, especially because so much of psychology, especially early psychology, is used to explain our darker natures. In the 1950's, humanistic psychology, which focuses on the inherent good within people, began to take precedent among researchers in the field. Prior to that, however, behaviorism and psychoanalysis ruled the day. This enabled scientists, and those who followed their work amongst the general public, to discuss mental illness and psychosis in a way that attempted to discuss the scarier side of mental illnesses like schizophrenia, disassociation, and sociopathy. While much of this work has now been discredited, this discussion of brain dysfunction and the evils that may arise from the actions of those that suffer from them permeated much of society and, more importantly for our purposes, film. One of the earliest films dealing with sociopathy, the complete disregard of right and wrong or inability to have any empathy whatsoever, is 1956's The Bad Seed, a harrowing tale of a little girl who is just the worst person imaginable.
Eight year old Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) is adorable and precocious, perfectly neat and tidy in all areas while excelling in schoolwork and her relations with her parents. After a classmate drowns during a school outing, her mother Christine (Nancy Kelly) begins to believe that Rhoda may have had something to do with it. As she questions her daughter and begins to uncover more and more evidence of her guilt, Rhoda begins to reveal herself as even more dangerous than her mother initially suspects. Rhoda finds herself in a difficult situation when her mother confronts her about her actions, and she must use all of her charm and ferocity in her attempts to escape punishment for her crimes.
McCormack's performance is remarkable, a perfect representation of sociopathy as it was believed to appear at the time. She's terrifying, an incredible accomplishment for the then-eleven-year-old. What is now known as antisocial personality disorder is on full display, with Rhoda doing anything she needs to do to get what she wants with zero regard for anyone else around her. All that matters is her desire, be it for rewards at school or praise at home, and McCormack's detached performance is chilling to the core. It's really the prototype of creepy kids that came afterwards, so utterly disturbing and profoundly impactful to both cinematic history and the general public. The nature versus nurture discussion that is still being debated today takes center stage in the film, and its focus on Rhoda is enthralling despite the film's relative lack of surprise.
Grieving mother Hortense Daigle (Eileen Heckart) is also an interesting character. Her drunk rambling in the Penmark home after the death of her son is heartbreaking, an over-the-top disturbing monologue about a dead child and the mystery surrounding his passing. She's looking for answers that only Rhoda could provide, and the sequence helps to establish the revelations that will come later in the film. The contrast between Hortense's love for, and complete inability to protect, her son and the attempted protection of Rhoda by her own mother, is incredibly effective. The film itself is not particularly shocking, at least not in a revelatory nature, largely because films of the era rarely did anything that wasn't forecast well in advance during the film. The Bad Seed instead depends entirely on the evil of its central character to carry the horror, and boy does it, even all these years later.
The Bad Seed is a suspense film entirely devoid of suspense. From the name alone you can easily tell where the film is heading, but it is the journey that makes the destination worth it in this case. Rhoda continually is the face of sociopathy, with even little details nailed to perfection in the film. She's selfish and entirely self-centered, but she's also self-protective. She's aware there are consequences for her actions, and she's willing to do literally anything to avoid them. It's the crux of the film, and I can't imagine how shocking it must have been for audiences at the time. There's a reason why the role of Rhoda has reverberated throughout film history, and it's still as chillingly effective as it was at the time.
Who this movie is for: Creepy kids movie fans, Psychological horror lovers, Sigmund Freud
Bottom line: While The Bad Seed does lose a lot of its shock value because of the hundreds of films that have ripped it off, it's still an exceptionally disturbing film with a truly amazing performance from its young lead. It's terrifying in its simplicity and is entirely dependent upon McCormack's delivery, but man, it still works. Chilling, completely disturbing, and a film that is somehow able to build suspense despite knowing from the jump what's going to happen. If you haven't seen this one before, you need to. Its impact can be felt across all genres of films even today.
