The Good Son
Year: 1993
Director: Joseph Ruben
Written by: Ian McEwan
Threat: Evil Child
Weapon of Choice: Crossbow
Based upon: original
IMDb page: 
The Good SonYear: 1993 Director: Joseph Ruben Written by: Ian McEwan Threat: Evil Child Weapon of Choice: Crossbow Based upon: original IMDb page: |
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Other movies in this series:
None
Rish's Reviews
Macauley Culkin pretty much plays himself in this creepy Psychological T-word.
Little Mark (Elijah Wood) loses his mother, and his father has to go overseas to do
business, leaving him in the care of his aunt and her children. The boy, Henry (Culkin),
turns out to be a little psychopath, but brilliant enough to hide it from everyone but our
hapless hero. As the story progresses, Henry becomes more and more dangerous,
jealous of the attention Mark receives, jealous of the attention his little sister receives,
and jealous of the attention his dead little brother received, and Mark has to find a way
to convince the grownups of the truth.
This was on TV a few years back, but I never saw it all the way through. I had seen
the ending years ago, so never felt it necessary to rent it again. And tyranist, having
the thing he had with Culkin, certainly wasn't going to watch it. Ever since I've known
him, tyranist has harboured a hatred for Macauley Culkin. I guess that hatred sort of
passed on to me. 'Cause boy, do I despise him now.
It has quite a cast, with Elijah Wood, David Morse, Wendy Crewson, and yet another
Culkin sibling . . . god, this one must be the oddest-looking one yet. From the director
of one of my faves, The Stepfather, it
was an ultimately mediocre film. It wasn't really scary, nor very fun or entertaining,
but I will admit it was well-executed. One scene that really worked was when Culkin
brought out a dummy he dubbed "Mr. Highway," and tossed it off a freeway overpass,
causing a giant multi-vehicle accident.
I don't know if this was a hit or a flop. I know that it was controversial, and a strange
choice for Culkin, right before his career went straight to hell. I believe he sued his
parents over this one.
Or maybe he only shot them over it.
Best Scare: When I was a kid, I had a cousin who truly was Evil. "Naughty?" you say,
"Or mischevious, troublesome, perhaps cruel?" No, I chose Evil and I meant it. She
really scared me, and scares me now when I think about her. The real terror was that
nobody else seemed to see it but me and when I told my mother about it, she said I
was being rude.
That's the big scare for me here, although Culkin is appropriately chilling in the role. How
do you convince grownups of something they don't want to believe?
I'd Recommend It To: Those who fear and hate Culkin but never knew why.
Posted: October 11, 2004
Total Skulls: 9
| Sequel | ||
| Sequel setup | ||
| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears |  |
Elijah Wood |
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title | |
|
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | ||
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS | ||
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | ||
| Wanton sex | ||
| Death associated with sex | ||
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | |
|
| Secluded location | ||
| Power is cut | |
|
| Phone lines are cut | ||
| Someone investigates a strange noise | ||
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | |
|
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | ||
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | ||
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | ||
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | ||
| No one believes only witness | |
|
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | ||
| Warning goes unheeded | ||
| Music detracts from scene | ||
| Death in first five minutes | |
|
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | ||
| Dark and stormy night | ||
| Killer doesn't stay dead | ||
| Killer wears a mask | ||
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | ||
| Blood fountain | ||
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | ||
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | ||
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | |
|
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | ||
| Unbelievably crappy ending | ||
| What the hell? |