Television standby and Lifetime Channel stalwart Rob Lowe adds a director credit to his expansive resume – and surprise, it’s a remake of The Bad Seed!
That sounds like a bit of a random choice, but I can understand why he would be drawn to such a project. I watched the original film when I was younger after obsessing over a description of it, as it was included in a list of movie endings wrecked by the Hay’s Code (that infamous code of moral conduct that set the tone for film for over three decades). I thought to myself: a little kid struck by lightning? That sounds silly. But it was so obscure at the time that I had to see it. Side note, but is anything that’s on occasional rotation from the Turner Classic Movies vault actually “obscure” nowadays?
The Bad Seed is still shocking for a film that came out in 1956. The ending is indeed cheesy and terrible, but that’s fixed by reading the original novel, which is twice as disturbing. So much of the horror of the book and original movie rests in the tiny palms of Rhoda Penmark, a sweet and innocent little girl with a penchant for murder. Her dissonant serenity gives the kids from Village of the Damned a run for their money. A child committing savage, adult acts with the capricious feelings of a child is something that is still fascinating in 2018, so it’s not terribly surprising that this film would crop up among the pile of Hollywood remakes.
But… is it any good? Well…
There has been one remake (and one high camp spiritual sequel) of The Bad Seed before, back in 1985, and the less said about that the better. The problem seems to be the source material itself. Author William March’s novels are steeped in complex psychology. The Bad Seed, the last of his works to be published during his life time, takes on the nature versus nurture argument that was gaining traction in the ’50s. The book and original film strongly imply that Rhoda’s serial killer nature is genetic, inherited from her grandmother. We never find out for sure as her mother Christine never seeks professional help (what a moral to the story). Unfortunately, that type of pop psychology is a bit lost to time and looks dated on screen when and if it shows up.
For The Bad Seed’s 2018 upgrade, we skip all that and cut to the chase. In this version, Emma (our Rhoda stand-in) is raised by her widower father, wealthy architect David Grossman. The first indicator of Emma’s superficial charm is also a scene of Emma practicing faking emotions in a mirror so that she can respond to her father appropriately, something that we didn’t see Rhoda doing. I found that a scarier because childhood is often associated with unbridled, honest feeling. A child imitating happiness is quite abnormal and more than a bit… off.
Sleazy groundskeeper LeRoy is replaced with stoner nanny Chloe here, undoubtedly to do away with the totally inappropriate sexual tension between LeRoy and Rhoda. Chloe tries to serve as a foil to Emma as the only one to see through her facade, but Emma ends up walking all over her from the get go. Alas, Chloe.
With all these modern updates in place, the plot goes on pretty much as normal. Emma kills a classmate out of jealousy and steals his medal. She then takes care of a teacher who gets too close to her secret. Emma continues her path of destruction until she finally reaches her father, who has discovered the truth… only to show that he doesn’t stand in her way either. Better luck next time, Rob!
Some of the changes do this movie some good – I’m partial to the idea of a father/daughter relationship as opposed to mother/daughter, just out of personal preference. Keeping the cast to a minimum helps as well. Explicitly making Emma’s family very well off was an interesting choice as well. March’s novel and the film adaptation imply that Rhoda’s family is comfortably middle class for the time, but Christine came first from a broken home and then, once adopted, a working class background. Those experiences influenced her drive to protect Rhoda, but in the 2018 version things are very different. Emma’s privilege doesn’t stem from having two parents and a comfortable upbringing. Money means more seclusion and a heightened sense of entitlement. Which is great, because that’s all little Emma really has for motive.
Yes, the big let down of this update was motive, the centerpiece and whole purpose of The Bad Seed. Removing the nature versus nurture debate was a wise choice, but where the direction falls short is replacing it with nothing. There are scenes that imply a difficult childbirth or Oedipal issues but these are never expounded upon. So why is Emma this way? We don’t see her exposed to the internet or really anything outside of her snowy, closed off town. Jealousy? Power and privilege? We’ll never know. That she just is should be frightening, but it’s just annoying. Emma’s aimless killing puts her up there with the worst of the Child’s Play sequels. You know, the ones where Chucky never really accomplishes anything despite ample time. For this version, it would have been interesting to see the Grossman family’s money and connections protect Emma rather than the fact that she’s a child. Because we jail children now and it’s normal, not scary at all!
Oh, and don’t think for a minute that I didn’t catch Patty McCormack as child psychiatrist Dr. March in a home run of an homage.
So The Bad Seed swings and misses. Lowe’s direction brought some interesting ideas to the table but they could have used a little more time in the oven, which is astounding considering the movie’s two hour run time. Sadly, Lowe caught a shotgun to the chest for all his trouble, which might make a sequel difficult. But thank goodness, we still have Emma!