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Overall Rating : 8/10
Directed By : Buzz Kulik
Scott Jacoby (Return to Horror High)
Kim Hunter (Born Innocent (TV) )
Pippa Scott
Dabney Coleman (Domino)
Supplied By : TrueGore Vintage DVD
BUY IT HERE : www.truegore.com
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Feb. 14, 2007
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| PLOT After he accidentally kills a girl, Ronald is hidden by his neurotic mother from the police. When she dies, he continues hiding in the eerie old house, even after a new family moves in. |
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| THE REVIEW In this 1974 made for TV movie, BAD RONALD tells the story of Ronald Wilby and how his life charged in the events that took place on a day that just so happened to be his Birthday. Ronald, is a shy and quiet kid whom loves to build things and illustrate his own fantasy cartoons - in fact he has even created the world in which they live in. Caught up in these hobbies, he does keep to himself, but he does have an eye for a pretty young girl who lives in the neighborhood named Laurie Matthews. Ronald some how musters up the courage to go over to Laurie's house and ask her out on a date between the two of them, which was a big mistake, as a group of her friends were there, thus this embarrasses Ronald a great deal. Disappointed, Ronald heads back home, but not before he bumps into the young sister of Laurie, Carol. Now Carol thinks Ronald is weird and she isn't afraid to let him know it - she continues to taunt the young man until he snaps, resulting in the accidental murder of the girl. Ronald, returns home to tell his Mother, whom is distraught afterwards and is literally scared for her young son's life and rushes to think of a way to had Ronald from those who come around asking about the crime. It's not long before Elaine Wilby finds a solution for her son - he would hide in a bathroom and with his new tool kit he just received for his Birthday as a gift, Ronald removes the door and re-plasters a new wall over the door-space essentially rendering as a living quarters for Ronald within the walls of the house. In the walk in pantry Ronald has set up a door in which to communicate and receive food from his mother and Elaine would relay messages to him through distinct knocking patterns. Elaine suffering from a bad gallbladder informs Ronald that she would be going in for an operation and that she would return in a week - but as fate would have it something goes wrong during the procedure and Mrs.. Wilby dies un expectedly. With Elaine not returning, realtors are not hesitant in selling the Wilby house, and sell it off too the Woods family, Mr. and Mrs.. Woods and their three daughters ; Athea, Ellen and Babs - but what the Woods' are unaware of is that Ronald is still there...living within the hollow walls of the Victorian house. Ronald pokes holes in various places in the walls to spy on the family and as they leave, he would come out to feed himself out of their refrigerator. As time went on with the Woods' in the house, Ronald, always a sucker for pretty girls takes a liking to the young Daughters in the family, especially the youngest one, Babs - and when the older brother of young Carol(the girl in which Ronald murdered) becomes the Boyfriend of the oldest Daughter, Ellen, Ronald feels threatened, thus creating a fantasy character based on Duane he refers to as "The Duke". One day as Babs returns home alone from a tennis outing Ronald ambushes her and tells her that he his "Prince Norbert" and she is his Princess(as in his drawings), Babs tries to run from Ronald, and the chase leads to the next door neighbors house Mrs.. Schumacher(whom dies via heart attack earlier after seeing Ronald snoop around), Ronald eventually locks the girl in the basement. After this he keeps Duane hostage in his secluded bathroom in the walls, all of which lead the Woods' to finally discover Wilby's presence within their house.... After watching BAD RONALD, probably the first thing to come to mind would be that "they don't make TV movies like that anymore" and unfortunately it's true. Rarely would a film that boasts an idea of a demented Mother knowingly harboring a son of which she knows committed a crime such as murder be seen on today's TV - it just does not happen. In BAD RONALD, not only does Elaine genuinely care about Ronald, but something is kind of 'off' about her - we get the sense that she is a bit of a weird on early on in this film. The Mother wants him to be career oriented(she wants him to be a Doctor), and nothing else - so his liking for girls is completely out of question - so when she finds that he has killed a young girl, she hit's him with the traditional "I told you so" speech so to speak. When watching this I thought to myself a lot which is good, because not a lot of movies require you to do so - It gets you to ask, would someone really hide their child in a wall like this - and by the time you get to the middle portion od the film, you find yourself being a believer that such would and could happen - it wouldn't surprise me. The writing of BAD RONALD, based on the novel by John Holbrook Vance, is definitely way above the average TV fare, in fact with a few tweaks it could have very much played out as a theatrical picture(at the time) The blood and gore hungry and the CGI spoiled audience of today, not all of them would like this film, due to it's simplistic ways of doing things - there is certainly no after polish here - this is shot realistically gritty and to the point. The fact that this film needs no gore at all, and is very entertaining and even suspenseful at times, is a credit to the Direction of Buzz Kulik, whom was able to create his one suspense with the simple use of camera angles and perspective alone. The performances of both of the film's top billed stars Scott Jacoby and Kim Hunter are almost, if not right on the money, they make the characters of Ronald and Elaine seem real, as if you could meet them yourself in your everyday life lets hope you don't. but you know what I mean... Overall, BAD RONALD is a film that tells a story that could very well really happen in today's world and makes it seem that way, via immensely brilliant storytelling that never lets up nor dulls down. |
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| GORE
METER N/A no gore.....and none is really needed, plain and simple... |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 3.5/10 Nothing special by any means, typical suspenseful tunes that overlay the tense stuff, in other words it gets the job done. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM I absolutely loved every minute of this lost 70's gem, and I will definitely go on the record as to saying that this is has to be the best made for tv film I have ever seen!(well, so far) It's really a shame that this great little film isn't easily available to the public anymore aside from a couple of REALLY high priced VHS copies. Fortunately Brad over at TrueGore.com has made this film available for just $10(as with all of his films). So if you'd like to get your hands on this lost treasure and see it for yourself, please click one of the TrueGore.com links located on this page....I highly recommend this film! |
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