Always Room For Growth

Let's get one thing straight: I will fight to the point of near death over the honor of 1956's The Bad Seed. It is brilliant, chilling, funny, smart, and simply the best.

Now let's slap that Lifetime Flowers In the Attic filter on a retelling and see what happens with Rob Lowe at the helm.

Quick Plot: Emma Grossman is a precocious 9-year-old whose current life goal is to win the citizenship medal in her exclusive private school (which for some Lifetime set availability reason, is set inside the kind of castle-esque manor best suited for wedding photos). When poor pubic speaker Milo wins instead, Emma's blue eyes narrow with the kind of ice cold fury that sends unsuspecting third graders to their deaths.

Widowed dad David (double duty puller Lowe) is a caring and concerned parent, but one also busy being the sole breadwinner with the (again) very Lifetime-ish profession of wildly successful furniture designer. He hires a carefree ex-snowboarder named Chloe as Emma's nanny, which briefly works out well since both sitter and charge are complete sociopaths.

That's right: if The Bad Seed didn't scream Lifetime to you at first glance, adding an eager-to-seduce pill-popping blond certainly helps. Not surprisingly, this is not the most subtle of remakes. While we don't get Rhoda Penmark's signature pigtails and tap shoes, we do get weaponized wasps' nests and poisoned hot chocolate, not to mention the rare "special appearance" credit that is ACTUALLY special because it's PATTY MCCORMACK AS A CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST.

This is the kind of film that follows the shot of a young woman being burned to death with a closeup of a fancy restaurant char broiling a fine steak. Subtlety rarely finds its way onto this network, and if anything, I wish Lowe pushed even higher over the top. Ultimately, we're left with a mild missed opportunity, but for all the woes we have about the time we're living in, the fact that we have a Bad Seed movie that includes Patty McCormack winking at the camera shows some positivity after all.

High Points

I've enjoyed screenwriter Barbara Marshall (Viral, Wish Upon)'s work immensely thus far, and while The Bad Seed does feel a tad Lifetime-limited, little touches, like Emma being a huge Shirley Temple fangirl, really show a special touch

Low Points

The Bad Seed is certainly not the first film to do this but it does give me an excuse to voice my hatred of water shots that insist on using liquid drops on the camera lens.I get what it's TRYING to do, but really, all it does for me is draw attention to the fact that what I'm watching is a product being filmed

Lessons Learned

Public speaking and spelling are not skills measured for citizenship

Some things never go out of style, be they class medals or little pink electric chairs

Always count your Xanax

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Bad Seed aired on Lifetime, so it's really only findable via your On Demand cable provider at this point in time. It never quite reaches the campy heights you (okay, I) want, but it's fun, disposable entertainment that hits most of the required notes. I certainly would have preferred a little more piano playing and pigtails, but my standards are obviously quite high. 

When You Wish Upon an Evil Chinese Music Box

If Kazaam has taught one thing, it's that Shaquille O'Neal always had bigger career potential as a product spokesman than film actor. 

If it taught us one more, it's that magical wish granters always have a price.

Quick Plot: Teenage Clare hasn't exactly had a charmed life. As a little girl, she witnessed her mother (Law & Order's favorite surprise lesbian Elisabeth Rohm) commit suicide. Dad Ryan Phillippe (yes, we're at the point in time where Ryan Phillippe is dad to a teenager and yes, that makes me feel old) is now an out-of-work saxophonist who makes some cash off his dumpster diving findings. 

Also, she's like, super not popular.

Life takes an upturn when Clare's dad brings home a mysterious box from a cemetery garbage pile. The ancient Chinese writing seems to suggest it grants wishes, leading Clare to give it a go, wishing her high school nemesis "rots." Cue the mysterious skin disease. In a completely unrelated turn of evens, Clare's beloved golden retriever mysteriously dies.

It takes a shocking number of similar granted wish/dead pal pairings before Clare can admit the obvious: the haunted box will grant her seven wishes, but each one must be paid for with the violent death of someone close. With the benefits of Clare's wishes growing bigger each time, can she stop herself from, you know, continuing to murder her friends and family?

Directed by the better-than-everyone-says-it-is Annabelle and way-worse-than-you-know-even-though-you-might-not-know-it-existed The Butterfly Effect 2's John R. Leonetti, Wish Upon is kind of a delight. A good chunk of the credit probably goes to Barbara Marshall, whose script is equally in tune to teenagers as her previous credit, Viral.

Played with a perfectly immature intensity by Joey King, Clare is a selfish, impulsive young woman who makes for a fantastically complicated protagonist. It's easy to judge her (admittedly very irresponsible and immoral) actions, but the film does a successful job of putting us into her mindset. As the poor, motherless artist bullied by the rich pretty kids, we understand why she'd be so easily seduced by something that can make her dreams come true. It's almost like a horror version of Lady Bird.

Wish Upon isn't a modern classic, but it's a solid, well-paced and made little horror movie that's simply much better than it could have been. The entire cast brings something interesting, from veterans like Phillippe and an ill-fated Sherilyn Fenn to the diverse, realistic teenagers (which includes Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's rising star Ki Hong Lee, Stranger Things' own Barb, Shannon Purser, and the incredibly charismatic Sydney Park). 

High Points
EVERYONE, this movie has a Most Popular Girl montage. A MOST POPULAR GIRL MONTAGE I SAID

Low Points
The Final Destination-ing of the death scenes is fun at first, but by the fourth case of teasing out what random contraption is going to slay which character, it feels a little tired

Lessons Learned

The price of quality ancient Chinese translation is a quality batch of wontons

When it comes to making wishes through evil box genies, use your adjectives wisely

HOW MANY MORE TIMES CAN I SAY TO BE MORE CAREFUL AROUND GARBAGE DISPOSALS BEFORE SOMEONE LISTENS????

Rent/Bury/Buy

Wish Upon is streaming on Amazon Prime and makes a great way to enjoy 90 minutes of your life. You probably won't think much about it after the fact, but it's perfectly engaging during its run.