Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Menacing Minors

I have a tendency to wake up quite early, and when I do, I turn on my shortwave radio and listen to Radio Australia. Most of what they air is a relay of domestic stuff, from the national network or at times the local affiliates. So, Sunday morning at 5AM my time they were running a Sunday evening chat show, which had this topic for discussion:



The guest actually had a reasonable love of movies, since he (and the host) didn't just talk about recent movies: Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed (which may or may not be pictured at left; I seem to be the only one having difficulty with getting Photobucket images to display properly) was mentioned. Also brought up was Damien in The Omen (I'm sorry I don't have any good pictures of that at hand), and they specifically discussed the original 1976 version, not the remake.

Another original mentioned was Village of the Damned. As I stated back in my review seven years ago, one of the really good things about this movie is that the story stands on its own, without much in the way of special effects. In fact, I'd suggest that it's probably better precisely because it relies on its story line and not the effects. Sure enough, in the May 2008 post, I mentioned 1940s producer Val Lewton, who relied on the same things when he was making those low-budget movies at RKO.

Obviously, they didn't mention somebody like Margaret O'Brien, whose cloying performances creep me out to no end. Then again, I seem to be one of the few people who find O'Brien creepy. And of course they didn't mention Julie Harris in Member of the Wedding. I should add that neither of them were particularly menacing.

What menacing child character would you recommend?

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