W. C. Fields was famed for saying “I’ve never met a child I liked.” And, while I rather like whiny, needy, hyperactive little handfuls in real life, on screen I like them best when they’re just plain rotten. The kind of moppets that audiences want to reach up on screen and slap silly. It’s easy to play cute. But really, really bad requires a certain nerve for an actor knowing they are going to alienate audiences. So, here’s some of my favorite movie brats:
(Rhoda) The Bad Seed. Patty McCormack was nine when she played the stage role of Rhoda Penmark on Broadway and shortly after did the film version, all based on William March’s novel, about a conscienceless, murderous child. Patty admitted, in interviews, about playing Rhoda: “She simply thinks she’s right. All the time.” And that’s how she played her, flinging her blonde pigtails back with a flourish and slitting her eyes when she recalls killing a classmate over a penmanship medal. As a kid, I wished Rhoda was my sister.
(Mary) The Children’s Hour. As the trouble-making Mary Tilford at a ritzy girl school, actress Karen Balkin plays one of the most repellent of brats, lying to her wealthy grandmother, hinting there was a lesbian relationship going on between the two women running the school (played by Shirley MacLaine & Audrey Hepburn). Her lie causes untold damage, even suicide, in this potent William Wyler film version of Lillian Hellman’s play. But if ever there was an onscreen kid you wanted to smack with a two by four it’s little Mary.
(Adore) The Day Of the Locust. Jackie Earle Haley might have been nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar as the creepy pedophile in Little Children (2007), but he was far more repulsive as the curly-haired Hollywood brat Adore in The Day Of The Locust (1975). Based on Nathanael West’s corrosive portrait of Hollywood, Haley plays a wanna-be child star who delights in screeching “Jeepers Creepers” in people’s faces and tap dances and mimics voices just to annoy. That is, until he is mercifully stomped to death by Donald Sutherland at a Hollywood premiere at the end of the film.
(Joy) Bright Eyes. Beloved actress Jane Withers (Giant) played the bratty rich spoiled kid, ironically named “Joy,” who torments poor orphaned Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes (1934). Now that takes guts- to be hateful to America’s sweetheart, and manage to steal the picture with her delightfully nasty performance.
(Damien) The Omen. Oh sure- you try growing up the son of Satan. It’s nature vs. nurture anyway. Sure, his nanny hanged herself in front of him on his fifth birthday, but frankly that was a pretty cool gift. And why did mom (Lee Remick) get in his way when he was wheeling around the house on his hot wheels? Yes, she fell and that was bad, and dad (Gregory Peck) did try to stab him with ceremonial knives at a church, but all childhood is hell.
(Gage) Pet Sematary. Little infant Gage was just chasing a kite when he was flattened by a truck in this film adaptation of the Stephen King novel. But bringing him back from the dead using an old Indian burial ground was not such a smart idea. And the new, returned “Gage” is not so cute anymore. He visits and stabs his neighbor (Fred Gwynne) before tearing out his throat with his teeth and takes a scalpel to his mother saying “I brought you something, Mommy.” Bad baby…bad, bad baby…
(Alice) Alice Sweet Alice. What’s so great about Paula E. Sheppard’s performance as the malcontent daughter Alice (in Alfred Soles’ brilliant 1976 film) is that her simmering rage is right on the surface, not masked by “sweetness and light.” She bristles at all the attention her pretty younger sister (Brooke Shields) is getting at her approaching catechism. She purposely pushes every one of her Aunt’s buttons, who visible dislikes her. She is openly contemptuous towards the grotesquely obese landlord upstairs who lies in bed listening to old records eating catfood. “Here’s your rent, fatso,” she taunts him, even picking up one of his many kittens and dashing it to the floor in order to get a rise out of him. She even has a little altar in the basement where she probably prays to Satan. We love you, Alice!
(Veruka) Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. Of all the kids who wins a Golden Ticket to tour the candy factory and meet the mysterious owner Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) in this 1971 film version of the Roald Dahl book, little spoiled princess Veruka (Julie Dawn Cole) is the most aggressively nasty. Pushy, demanding, imperious, she’s forever belittling her dad who has accompanied her there. It all escalates until they reach a room filled with geese laying golden eggs and Veruka demands one immediately, even singing a song “I want it now!” to press the point. Mercifully she falls down a shoot marked for “bad eggs” and her indulgent father jumps in after her.
(Dudley) Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone. The overweight, spoiled son of Vernon & Petunia Dursley, Dudley (Harry Melling), was relentless in tormenting his orphaned cousin (and future wizard) Harry (Daniel Radcliffe). He delighted in pinching, bullying and causing Harry to spend most of his time punished in a small cupboard under the stairs. Dudley’s birthdays were usually fraught with drama. When he got 36 presents one year he screamed “that’s two less than last year!” Fortunately, he got his comeuppance when Harry saved him from an attack by the Dementors and eventually begrudgingly admitted “I don’t think you’re a waste of space.” Well, I guess that’s something. But I still wish someone had waved a wand and turned him permanently into a toad.
(Anthony) The Twilight Zone: The Movie. In this omnibus film based on old The Twilight Zone episodes (each done by different directors) Joe Dante directed one based on a favorite “It’s A Good Life.” It’s about a small town terrorized by a young boy- Anthony (Jeremy Licht) with supernatural powers who can transform people into monstrous cartoonish figures or send them “into the cornfield” when they annoy him. In the Dante film Kathleen Quinlan plays a schoolteacher who unwittingly drives through town and somehow is the only one who can wrangle with Anthony and not get turned into a Jack-in-the-box. Visually the Joe Dante short film has a lot going for it- with wonderful cinematic spins on old Warner Brother cartoons. But Billy Mumy, who played Anthony in the TV version, was such a good creepy kid, he’s hard to beat.
(Isaac) Children Of The Corn. Speaking of cornfields, there sure are plenty in this enjoyable 1984 movie based on a Stephen King short story. It stars John Franklin as the weirdo child preacher Isaac who mobilizes all the kids of Gatlin, Nebraska to kill the adults and make sacrifices to “He who walks behind the rows.” Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton plays a young couple driving the backroads who unfortunately get trapped in Catlin and, (forgive me) are “stalked” by the killer kids. One has to praise the casting director- where the hell did they find John Franklin? With his buttoned-up shirts, black Amish-like hat and a voice that sounds like he just sucked down a balloon filled with helium he’s just a-maize-ing.
(Henry) The Good Son. It really wasn’t a bad idea. Take the star of Home Alone (Macaulay Culkin)- and turn his character from mischievous imp to evil sociopath. Elijah Wood plays a young boy whose mother died and is sent to stay with relatives in Maine. His cousin Henry (Culkin) seems, at first, friendly, but his psychopathic nature slowly reveals itself. Audiences were comfortable seeing a swinging paint can hit a burglar full in the face, but not so much Culkin pushing his sister on skates across thin ice to watch her crash through just for fun. Although witnessing Henry’s mom ask point blank if he killed his own brother to have Culkin belligerently reply, “What if I did?” somewhat makes up for the endless, repugnantly cute “O” faces Home Alone spawned.
(Jack & Emily) Home Movie. Writer/director Christopher Denham’s disturbing film is made up of family home movies of the Poe family. Dad David (Adrian Pasdar) is a Lutheran minister who gets a new video camera and starts recording holidays with wife Clare (Cady McClain) and their cute, but sullen ten-year-old twins- Jack (Austin Williams) and Emily (Amber Joy Williams). Their mom is a child psychiatrist but is oblivious to the warning signs of her own offspring. Jack & Emily talk in a secret language. They sleep in the same bed. They have a private clubhouse that is off limits to their parents. Dad films he and his son playing ball until he realizes the boy is actually throwing rocks at him. While teaching his son how to tie knots in the shed, little Emily is killing a frog in a vice. Over Christmas they find the pet cat crucified. And a playdate ends with a neighbor’s child severely bitten. The parents realize way too late the kids are not alright. Beautifully constructed- you watch with building dread as the situation scarily escalates.
Anyone for a vasectomy?
where’s Taffy?