Bad Ronald

Another one of the made for TV films that appeared on the ABC Movies of the Week. Perhaps by today's standards it does not have the impact that it did when it came out in 74. However for a made for TV movie the story is intriguing and a level of suspense exists which keeps the viewer interested in finding out what will happen next. Most of the 70's made for TV films consisted of original unique stories with good acting and were all presented in a 90-minute format. All in all they including this one still seem head and shoulders above the made for TV movies of the 90's.

I was eleven or younger when I watched his film. I had sat up late watching t.v. with my father (sometimes we would do that until it went off the air--remember those days?). He fell asleep and I ended up watching Bad Ronald, the last thing on that night, all alone.

All I know is, I couldn't stop watching until the end, and I have never forgotten this movie. It scared me so much that I was afraid to get up and turn the t.v. off when it was over, and I still have a surprisingly clear recall of the film more than twenty years later. Surely this says something about the power of the idea, if nothing else.

Ronald's fantasy world was a big stand-out to me, as was the horror of his position, unexpectedly deserted by the only person who loved him.

I watched this TV movie in January 1979 on television in England one weekday afternoon when I was off school. I was 15 years old and having a miserable time in my life. Bad Ronald captured perfectly my feelings of loneliness, isolation, being trapped and retreating into myself. You can imagine that I identified closely with Ronald's experience and the film made a lasting impression on me as it seems to have done on others. A couple of years ago I did manage to get hold of it on video and saw for the first time in a quarter of a century. Happily I can watch it now with much greater detachment. The director Buzz Kulik is better known, I believe, for Brian's Song but Bad Ronald deserves to be remembered too.

"Bad Ronald" enjoys quite an impressive cult reputation, despite "only" being a low-budgeted and made-for-TV film from the early 70's, so I simply had to check it out to see what all the fuzz is about. I can't deny "Bad Ronald" has something irresistibly special! The atmosphere is thoroughly unsettling and Scott Jacoby portrays a strangely menacing Ronald. There are no special effects or bloody massacres in this film, yet it's an engaging little thriller with a fairly original premise. Ronald is a geeky and slightly peculiar teenager who lives with his dominant and overly protective mother. He's obsessed with his personally created comic book universe, yet his mother insists on becoming a prominent doctor. When Ronald accidentally murders a young girl after she mocked him one too many times, his mother sees no other solution than to construct an extra lair in their house and hide him from the cops. Then when mommy doesn't return from the hospital one day after a routine operation, Ronald remains hidden in the house and new tenants move in. Slowly going insane from loneliness and paranoia, Ronald mistakes the new tenants' daughter for his comic book heroine. The script is a little too far-fetched to be plausible and it definitely contains too many improbabilities, like the bizarrely noisy neighbor Mrs. Shumacher, for example, and the fatal gal blather operation. But at least it's never boring or exaggeratedly ridiculous, so I'm certainly not complaining. Ronald's parental house provides the film with a uniquely sinister setting, complete with hideous wallpaper & furniture, peepholes and secret cupboard passageways. Especially considering it's a TV-production, "Bad Ronald" is well photographed, suspenseful and it approaches several themes that are appealing to fans of grim 70's exploitation. Recommended!

Several people have commented on the bizarre fantasy aspects of this weird little movie...and for that we can thank the fantastic imagination of its author, the inimitable Jack Vance. Vance is better known as one of the most singular fantasy and sci-fi authors of the last fifty years -- his 'Dying Earth' stories are classics of the genre. Yet as far as I know, Bad Ronald is the only book of his ever made into a movie.

I'd love to see this come out on DVD, along with other classic ABC Movies of the Week like "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" and "Crowhaven Farm".