"Children can be nasty, don't you think?" We watched the camp classic "The Bad Seed" from 1956 this week with Emily Ollero Jones from the podcast "Female Driven", and what will you give us for a basket of kisses? Of all the bad-ass bitches in cinema history, there isn't anyone quite like Rhonda Penmark, played by Patty McCormick. Rotted to the core, Rhonda is a child serial killer and psychopath who manipulates all the adults around her. We wouldn't have Damien Thorn from "The Omen", Esther from "Orphan", or Mac Culkin in "The Good Son" if it weren't for Patty McCormack's iconic performance. First published as a novel in 1954, to a Broadway play the same year, then this Mervyn LeRoy-directed movie in 1956, "The Bad Seed" shocked audiences with an ad campaign that promised to goop and gag its viewers. Oscar-nominating all three of its actresses who came from performing it on stage, "The Bad Seed" has some incredible performances by Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, and Eileen Heckart. We're here to tell you this movie still operates at a ten and doesn't let up for its over two-hour run time.
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