The Bad Seed

Um, well, I actually have a couple that I put in here.

Part of me wants it to be the bad seed, because I love the bad seed.

It's the best.

And you could even go with the Rob Lowe bad seed if you wanted to, which I haven't seen.

So I'm just going to do a giant order to my parents house and have them bring them over here.

Yeah, there's a tease for another episode that's incoming, but when The Bad Seed got introduced, Zach Bynes, our very first Ballyhoo guest, told me how much he loved it.

I'm like, all right, we're booking you because I haven't had anybody bring up The Bad Seed, but I love The Bad Seed a lot.

But back to All Through the Night, though.

In talking about the film, it's interesting, too, because this is one of the few instances where the director lived long enough not only to write his memoir, but did a commentary for the movie.

And yeah, I'm just, I'm really, I'm like so invested in what Avalon is doing and I'm going to just like, like, beat the drum for them for the foreseeable future, because I think they're just such an exciting filmmaker.

And to wrap things up, this morning, randomly, I decided to rewatch The Bad Seed, the first ever evil little child movie, which gave birth to this entire genre, from everything from Chucky to Village of the Damned to Kathy's Curse, uh just all of these great movies about wicked little children the visitor that's another great one about an evil oh

yes

but uh yeah i i love i love uh the bad seed because it's practically a john waters movie this girl is so evil all of the emotions are so overcranked it's such a crazy melodrama But the funny thing is, in the 1950s, everyone thought that the movie was, like, a very serious look at a disturbed child.

And the movie got Oscar nominations.

But, like, it got Oscar nominations alongside, like, Douglas Sirks' Written on the Wind.

And they didn't realize that, like, both of these movies were operating through kind of a subversive camp lens.

That these movies were actually both queer as fuck.

Um, like she's...

I, I said to Chris, and I stand by it, she's kind of like the Bad Seed if she-

Yes

... was, uh, in her late teens, early 20s.

Pretending you are 12 years old.

There's a whole, uh, whole host of, like, uh, horror movies, uh, along these lines, like The Bad Seed and The Orphan and things along those lines.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm totally out.

Wonderful.

From The Bad Seed.

Butterflies Are Free.

Won the Academy Award for Butterflies Are Free.

Welcome to Mindset Movie Reviews.

Today we're going to review The Bad Seed.

The Bad Seed, directed by Mervyn LeRoy and released in 1956, is a chilling exploration of the nature versus nurture debate, wrapped in the guise of a horror drama thriller.

The film, adapted from a successful Broadway play and a best-selling novel, delves into the unsettling idea that evil can be inherent, lurking beneath the surface of even the most innocent-seeming individuals.

The story centres around Christine Penmark, played by Nancy Kelly, who appears to have an idyllic life with her loving husband and their seemingly perfect daughter Rhoda, portrayed by Patti McCormick.

Heckart's portrayal of a drunken, heartbroken mother is both poignant and slightly over-the-top, fitting the film's campy yet intense tone.

Jones, as Leroy, provides some of the film's most memorable moments as he taunts Rhoda, unaware of the danger he is provoking.

The Bad Seed is a product of its time, with its theatrical style and dialogue-heavy scenes.

And then also Zach Bynes, our Troma pal.

He and I are going to be talking about the bad seed, Patty McCormick's sociopathic masterclass performance uh give me those shoes i love that movie there's a reason why john waters calls it a masterpiece because it is so stick around that and so much more but until all that and until next time folks good night Amen.

This concludes tonight's episode of Yesteryear Ballyhoo Review.

If you've enjoyed yourself, be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast apps.

You know, one of the things that I was so impressed with about your mom's career was the ability for, as I said earlier, the actor's actor.

But when you do a movie like The Bad Seed, and you're not the lead in The Bad Seed.

In fact, you have a couple of scenes in The Bad Seed.

She's so overwhelming that she gets nominated for the Academy Award.

Yes, and won the Golden Globe.