The Bad Seed Reviews

A near perfect thriller...

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

The 'secret' villain is the missing father - or we should say, the mother for trying to child-rear by herself ... The bad seed is dead - but single parents, be warned.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

The dark drama that launched a genre of evil-kid movies. [Blu-ray]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

...it's hard now to see what all the fuss was about.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10

Director LeRoy has been overly faithful to the play script.

Full Review

An erratic but compelling film that lingers long after the fade-out.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

This melodrama about a child with an inbred talent for homicide is pretty unpleasant stuff on its own.

Full Review

Excellent, chilling classic with McCormack as perfect demon child.

| Original Score: 5/5

Mervyn LeRoy, who produced and directed, has lost a great deal of the bite of the play.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

1956 was way too soon for an unfettered treatment of the central premise.

Full Review

Scandalous, scary and popular, but extremely outdated , this well-acted melodrama was one of the first to deal with criminal conduct as biologically conditioned

Full Review | Original Score: B

A classic reason for getting your tubes tied.

| Original Score: 4/5

Wrung to the point of unwatchable by meandering monologues and slow reveals.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

...behind the blonde, pigtailed facade lurks a sinister and slippery sociopath.

Full Review

The movie has influenced dozens of "evil children" flicks, from The Omen to Problem Child.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

The Bad Seed reflects Slant Magazine's blind, abject terror of precocious, well-behaved little blonde girls.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

The Bad Seed left me with a bad taste.

Full Review | Original Score: C

LeRoy's classic terrorizing tale of a deceptive delinquent with menacing motives to match is chillingly hypnotic.. The Bad Seed is a savvy psychological seesaw that carries its destructive mode brilliantly.

| Original Score: 4/5

Still pretty effective film version of the stage shocker.

| Original Score: 4/5

It is less a movie about dementia than a movie which itself seems demented, though it is anyone's guess whether or not this effect is intended.

Full Review | Original Score: B+