Bad Ronald

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.

After accidentally killing a girl, teenager Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby) is hidden away from cops in a secret room in the house by his domineering mother (Kim Hunter). Poor Ronald is left all alone when she passes away. Sad Ronald finds the situation gets better and worse when Mr. Wood (Dabney Coleman) moves into the house with his wife and three daughters. Bad Ronald, whose mindset is becoming increasingly delusional, becomes fixated on the youngest daughter (Cindy Fisher) and begins to imagine she is the princess for the imaginary kingdom in his head. Highly effective TV-movie from director Buzz Kulik that is based on the novel by John Holbrook Vance. You do actually feel sorry for the boy and Jacoby gives a great performance, especially for a teen. The end is very rushed, but it is after all a TV movie. Expanded and it could be a top-notch thriller that still would work today. When I see something like this I wonder why Hollywood never tackles this kind of material for a remake (the French did a version in the early 1990s).

I've been wanting to see this movie for a long time and I'm glad I finally did. This is a TV movie from the glory days before TV movies were all aimed at bored housewives, before you had a rampaging Delta Burke or somebody like that crusading against the drunk driver who sold drugs to her son, turned out her daughter, and molested her dog. I'd watch Lifetime and the Hallmark channel religiously if there was a remote chance they'd ever show something like this! Ronald is a creepy but at the same time oddly sympathetic teenager played by Scott Jacoby (yes, THE Scott Jacoby!). After he kills a neighbor girl, his doting mother hides him in secret room, but then she tragically dies and a new family with three teenage daughters moves in. The dad is played by a young Dabney Coleman WITH HAIR. The two older daughters were played by the sexy Eilbacher sisters, but the perverted Ronald falls in love with the youngest daughter (Cindy Fisher), who the camera leers at as much as he does (she keeps running up stairs dressed in a short tennis skirt--is this 70's made-for-TV kiddie porn?). When the girls parents go out of town, Bad Ronald makes his presence known and all hell breaks loose. There are no important social messages here, no familial problems are addressed, Delta Burke does not appear--it's just two hours (minus commercial breaks) of enjoyable trash.

An eerie film about an outcast teenage boy who lives in a fantasy world of princes and princesses which he spends his time elaborately illustrating on paper as a hobby. His mother has more sensible expectations for her son with a future medical career. But that bright future may never materialize after Ronald accidently kills a girl passing by who was taunting him with cruel remarks. In a state of shock and grief at what he'd done, Ronald buries the girl's body in a shallow grave and returns home. His mother, upon seeing him exhausted and dirty, asks what happened. Ronald, still visibly shaken, tells his mother what he did and his she tries to console him advising that it was only an accident. But when he tells his mother that he buried the girl's body, his mother becomes alarmed and angered realizing that the police will wonder why Ronald buried the body as if to conceal the incident. Knowing that this would destroy any chances of Ronald becoming a future doctor, his mother feels there is only one thing that can be done, hide Ronald in the house until things quiet down. She can just tell the police that he ran away. Ronald and his mother work through the night to convert a spare bathroom in their Victorian house into a well-concealed "hidden room" in the house where Ronald would remain at all times. One more problem arises as his mother must go in for some minor surgery which would leave Ronald on his own for a week alone. His mother dies during the operation. Ronald remains in the hidden room. The home is quickly put up for sale and a new family moves in. The house's new residents had already heard the horrific news of Ronald, and what he'd done, but they believed he had long since disappeared. Not long after the family settles in, they begin to hear unexplained noises and food begins missing from the kitchen. They wonder if their Victorian house also has a resident ghost. They find out soon enough!

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".