Editorials
Pure Evil Wears Pigtails: ‘The Bad Seed’ at 60
If you’re going to create a character that personifies evil, what better deceptive vessel than an eight-year-old girl in a plaid cotton dress. Give her braids (described as “hangman’s nooses”) adorned with two small bows of ribbon. Make her dimples shallow. Have her speak in an old-fashioned way that veils her threats. Offer her mother a basket of kisses. A knack for cleanliness that borders on psychotic.
Have her want nothing more in the world than to win her school’s penmanship medal. And for the safety of the community and the lives of our children, I am begging you, give her that goddamn penmanship medal.
The “evil child” motif has been done to death in horror. From a whole Village of the Damned and McCauley Culkin throwing dummies off a bridge to “There’s Something Wrong With Esther,” it’s been drilled in our eyeballs not to trust ankle-biters. But in 1954, William March’s bestselling novel The Bad Seed jarred the nation with its depiction of pure, pig-tailed adolescent evil: little miss Rhoda Penmark.
A crucial pressure point that made March’s book so disturbing at the time was the fact that this was the mid-1950s. Post-war. Economic boom. The kick-off of suburban flight. Everything was SWELL. Dad worked hard to hold a pipe delicately between his teeth. Mom cooked and watched the laundry revolve (you do know that’s why they invented the window on washing machines, right? So Mom had something entertaining to watch). And the kids skipped home to nestle at their parents’ feet.
Then along came Rhoda. A brown-eyed girl with “no emotion in her voice.” Whose pleasant demeanor is betrayed by her perpetual “acquisitive look.” A sociopath. A prepubescent pipsqueak and perpetual perjurer. The type of killer you devote slow, savory syllables to: murd-der-er.
In the book, March wrote about America as it was, and more importantly, how it was eroding. And Rhoda was the first rust spot.
Rhoda took murder out of the ghettos and the gutter and put it in the living room (with a doily under it, of course). Juvenile delinquency was a major concern at this time, but was mainly confined to inner cities and teenagers (see: Blackboard Jungle, High School Hellcats, Teenage Crime Wave, about a thousand others). But Rhoda, man, she was something special.
March’s book was also spawned out of a hot reexamining of the nature vs. nurture debate, as well as criminology as a whole and a look at the ol’ nature of evil. Whether anyone was born evil, inherited evil through their genes, or becomes evil thanks to a shitty upbringing was regular parlor discussion. This is depicted heavily (boringly so at times) in March’s book, via the male characters. In March’s book, males love to sit around and talk evil and crime. The women, on the other hand, are busybodies – devouring and delivering gossip like it’s their daily bread.
Trembling in between these corners of armchair detectives and meddlers, like a moth trying not to get fried by the light of knowledge, is Christine Penmark, Rhoda’s mother and the beating heart of the story – a woman who suffers very different fates in the book and film.
And holy shit, the film. That’s what we’re supposed to be talking about here. March’s book was adapted for the stage almost immediately after being published and two years later came the Mervyn LeRoy film adaptation. Struggling artist LeRoy previously directed some underdog indie called The Wizard of Oz.
The silver screen Bad Seed follows the book nearly precisely – a child is murdered over the penmanship medal, Rhoda fucks with everybody – but with two major differences: the ending and the almighty Patty McCormack. The “happy” ending of the film was forced down LeRoy’s throat by the censors. Back then, crime “could not pay” – that’s why so many dark films from the golden age of noir have happy endings, and why indie middle fingers like United Artists were born. But The Bad Seed was a studio production, so Rhoda needed to be stopped. What a dumb ending.
But from her blonde hair to her buckle-shoes, McCormack’s Rhoda was an almost living-doll of evil that has since been replicated countless times. In the book Rhoda is a brunette. In the film, she’s a toe-headed, glassy-eyed nightmare. “Talky Tina” from the Twilight Zone episode “The Living Doll” and Annabelle owe their whole get up to McCormack.
How effective was her performance? McCormack was nominated for an Academy Award at age 11. It’s a funny nomination to think about. A lot of kid actors don’t deserve the damn thing. They’re hard to take seriously or they’re nominated for cutie pie, “old soul” performances I don’t think they fully understand (I want to throttle most kid actors, I’m biased). McCormack was so insidious as Rhoda, she earned that shit for being effectively evil, malicious, psychotic. How about that. Homegirl is a pioneer for horror performances.
The Bad Seed’s impact still pollutes the ground 60 years on. Watch McCormack’s performance once and from then on, every “evil kid” flick you see will pale. Eli Roth expressed interest in remaking it back in 2004, with more gore (hey, you and Rob Zombie should hang out!). Well, that sucks and would never work.
It’s in the eyes, man. It’s in the neatness, the cleanliness. The eloquent speech. The dress. The pigtails. And the penmanship. My god, the penmanship.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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