I really did want to like this film. As a fan of the horror genre and "evil kid" movies, I heard from someone much older than me that this film was a must. I can see why this film may have been shocking and provocative at the time it was released. I was upset that none of the child's evil doings were shown on screen. In a creepy essence, that's the whole fun of horror movies. The character development for Rhonda just seemed abrupt and unrealistic. It was way too dramatic and it didn't seem authentic. I'm not sure if its her fault as an actress or just poor screenplay. Nevertheless, I don't actually regret watching the film. I like to watch everything under the horror genre at least once.

The movie " The Bad Seed" of 1956 directed by Mervyn LeRoy is a quite a fascinating movie. It is a very original horror/drama. Patty Mc Cormack was most definitely one of the best characters. Her performance was really goods the villain in my opinion. I think this movie could be one of the best child performances I have ever encountered. I also thought that Nancy Kelly had a great role as mother in this film. Evelyn Warden fits perfectly in her role. Ellen Heckart as the murdered boys drunk mother stole the show. Her acting was also superb.This film was a little stagy in some aspect, however it really didn't effect the film in a bad way. If anything it actually kind of enhanced the atmosphere in my opinion.This film had great suspense towards the end of it. It thought it reached new depths of of oddity and lead up to a pretty predictable ended. every mystery was was revealed one after another. I could see this movie being re-made at some point. I think it would be interesting to watch with the effects we have in today's world.I would rate this movie as a 7/10 it wasn't too bad

"Little Caesar" director Mervyn LeRoy's controversial film "The Bad Seed" concerns a bright, well-behaved, 8-year old girl who qualifies as a sociopath because she displays no qualms about killing anybody that interferes with her lifestyle. Nevertheless, she maintains an innocence that nobody could impugn on the surface of things. This Academy Award nominated melodrama came about after novelist William Marsh wrote "The Bad Seed" in 1954 and the Broadway play written by Maxwell Anderson followed. The idea that such a youngster could commit such murderous acts is still rather sensational, and it wasn't until 1985 when television finally caught up with it and produced it as a made-for-television movie. Of course, neither LeRoy nor his scenarist John Lee Mahin, best known for "Scarface" and "Quo Vadis," could depict the grisly killings in complete detail owing to the rules of the Production Code Administration. The cast is good, especially Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, and Eileen Heckart. Of course, Patty McCormack stands out because she has to convince us that she could perpetuate these crimes. Nancy Kelly suffers throughout because she isn't sure that she wasn't an orphan, and things get complicated for her because she discovers that her cute light girl is in fact a murderer. The initial evidence comes out after Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) grows incensed that another school mate--Claude Daigle--has won the spelling bee contest that she believed that she should have won. Later, the school that Patty attends takes the students on a field trip near a lake, and the little boy drowns under mysterious circumstances. Mind you, this tragedy takes a drastic toll on Claude's mother, Hortense (Eileen Heckart of "Heartbreak Ridge"), and she visits the Penmarks and tries to extract every bit of information that she can get out of Rhoda about Claude's last hours alive. Meantime, the man who serves as a groundskeeper, LeRoy Jessup (Henry Jones of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"), suspects that Rhoda is a little dastard, and the two have a contentious relationship until Rhoda's well-meaning mother Christine (Nancy Kelly) warns him to back off. Imagine her surprise after she finds the spelling bee medal in Rhoda's belongings and later suspects that her darling daughter killed the groundskeeper. Naturally, Christine cannot handle this revelation any more than she can deal with the news that she was a orphan taken in by a kindly couple. The chief problem with LeRoy's adaptation is its reliance on standard-issue theatrical staging of the action. The film confines most of the action to the Penmark's rental apartment, occasionally going outside so Rhoda and Jessup can have their quiet confrontations. Altogether, despite the drawback of static staging, "The Bad Seed" hasn't lost any of its potency, and Patty McCormack is first-rate as the homicidal little girl. Although he doesn't have a major role, William Hopper walks in and out of the action as Christine's husband and Rhoda's father who has left them to take a job in Washington, D.C., in the Pentagon. The ending is a real chiller, too!

Nature or nurture? Can a person be born evil or is wickedness always the result of a bad upbringing? These are the questions that arise as 8-year-old Rhoda (Patty McCormack) proceeds to bump off anyone who gets in her way.The first few scenes of The Bad Seed drip with an exaggerated saccharine sweetness that is difficult to stomach ("What will you give me for a basket of kisses?" asks Rhoda; "A basket of kisses? Why, I'll give you a basket of hugs!" comes her father's reply). Some might believe that director Mervyn LeRoy was deliberately aiming for high camp. Others have surmised that the over the top theatricality was the result of a stage cast unused to performing in front of a camera.Another possibility, and one that I he subscribe to, is that LeRoy intended for the excessive fawning of his central family to catch his audience off-guard, the cloying sentimentality at complete odds with the harrowing emotional pain and suffering later endured by those most affected by Rhoda's unspeakable acts. It certainly had that effect on me, the breakdown of Rhoda's mother (Nancy Kelly) and the anguish of Mrs. Daigle (Eileen Heckart), mother of dead child Claude, coming as quite a shock given how unbearably happy everyone is at the start of the film.Extremely daring for the day, the film not only deals with the touchy subject of child murderers (rare, but not unheard of), but also depression, mental breakdown, alcoholism, and suicide, ultimately making it quite the traumatic experience despite the staginess of the acting. It also manages to deliver not one, but two twist endings, the first very effective, the second bloody ridiculous, but oh so entertaining. And to cap it all off, we get a cast call that sees each performer taking a bow, closing with Kelly putting McCormack over her knee and giving her a good spanking. WTF?!?!