This movie is aching for a remake to correct the horrible ending. Up until the very end, this one a very creepy and entertaining film about an evil sociopathic child. This child has absolutely no conscience and will even kill for the smallest reasons--all because she is just BAD! I especially like when the neighbors start to catch on that this child is like Lucifer, Jr. but the parents use denial to convince themselves that their little girl is just "misunderstood" (yeah, "misunderstood" just like Hitler). Ultimately, though, the mother is faced with the fact that the kid is an evil spawn and she MUST kill it! The only complaint I had at this point, and it's a minor one, is that the dialog was a bit over-the-top and the film seemed stagy (it was after all adapted from a play).

Now, as of 95% of the way through the film, I would have given the film a 9 or a 10--it was that good and suspenseful. BUT, again and again, the movie did not end when it could have but lingered on and on. For example, it COULD have ended after the mom tried to kill herself and the kid. It also COULD have ended after the little girl made it sound like she was going to kill Aunt Monica to get her pet birds. But, the movie ends with an out of the blue lightning bolt that zaps the demon spawn and turns her into charcoal! Huh!??! Unexpected this was--but also really stupid and contrived.

PS--My ORIGINAL review was a little different, as I remembered the movie as having ended differently--badly, yes, but different. But, after seeing the DVD again, I changed my review to reflect the ending on the DVD. Later, I checked the Leonard Maltin guide and it indicated there WERE different endings to the movie--the original "cop out" Hollywood ending (with everything ending happily) and the DVD one which consisted of God hitting her with a lightning bolt at the end. Once again, both these endings were dumb--one too ridiculously upbeat and the other just completely out of left field and goofy.

One of the most gruesome films ever put on screen is The Bad Seed. But as terrifying as it is, The Bad Seed teaches a lesson that has to be reinforced every so often. That pure evil does indeed exist and there are no root causes in environment for it's being found. You find it here in the amoral child Rhoda Penmark, and you will find it in real life in such disparate individuals as Osama Bin-Laden or Charlie Manson.

We are fortunate indeed to have all the principal cast members from the Maxwell Anderson play that ran 334 performances on Broadway during the 1954-55 season. Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, Eileen Heckart, Evelyn Varden, and Joan Croyden all came over from Broadway to repeat their roles. In the case of Nancy Kelly she won a Tony Award for her performance as the overwrought army wife who comes to the horrible realization she's raising an amoral monster. Henry Jones made his film debut in The Bad Seed.

When the film opens we see what looks like an all American family with father William Hopper leaving his wife Nancy Kelly and daughter Patty McCormack for some army detail that will take him away for a bit. The family lives off post with landlady Evelyn Varden.

McCormack is a strange child who doesn't seem to show real emotion like most of us though she makes a big show of affection when it suits her needs. When a boy from the school she goes to drowns and later a medal that boy won for spelling is found in McCormack's possession, Kelly is frightened out of her mind.

The acting in The Bad Seed goes to levels of excellence rarely attained by a whole cast. It's as if the cast were a functioning machine, each part reinforced by the other. They all feed off each other's excellence.

Nancy Kelly was nominated for Best Actress and Patty McCormack and Eileen Heckart were nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Heckart rules when she's on screen as the distraught mother of the drowned boy who's doing a little drowning herself in gin. Kelly, Heckart, and Joan Croyden who is the school principle all have suspicions about McCormack, but no one can prove a thing.

Henry Jones who played so many delightful rustics on the screen is an evil handyman who suspects McCormack of the foul deed also. But it's different with him because it's a case of takes one to know one. He gets dealt with in an interesting fashion.

The Bad Seed is a timeless classic, it could be updated and play today, tomorrow, the next century, the good and the bad nature of humankind doesn't change. The best summation of this film was actually delivered in another film, The List Of Adrian Messenger by George C. Scott when he comments that, "evil is, evil does exist".

Col. Kenneth Penmark (William Hopper) is going off leaving his perfect wife Christine (Nancy Kelly) and his perfect sweet daughter Rhonda (Patty McCormack). Monica Breedlove (Evelyn Varden) is the talkative landlord from upstairs. Leroy Jessup (Henry Jones) is the simpleton handyman who has a nasty streak. He sees through the little girl's innocent facade. The mother is concerned about her callousness especially after a child drowns at school.

This is an interesting horror from this era. I would have like to see this directed by Hitchcock in his prime. I think it was a minor mistake to use the stage actors for the movie version. There is sometimes a real effect that a movie star has on the screen. This movie needs that kind of star power to push it over the top. The little girl played by Patty McCormack is effectively creepy. Henry Jones puts in a complicated performance as the creep. Eileen Heckart throws in a big performance as the drunken mother of the dead child. However the ending is a problem. I understand that has to do with the code, but it just ruins it with an unnatural wrap up and I'm not talking about the lightning.