Lifetime replants classic ‘Bad Seed’
Patty McCormack returns for new take on groundbreaking horror movie
Just because Patty McCormack played a bad seed, it doesn’t mean she is one. ❚ But she could’ve fooled audiences who turned out for the 1954 Broadway production of “The Bad Seed” and two years later for its film adaptation, for which she earned a best supporting actress Oscar nomination portraying the precocious, pint-size murderer Rhoda Penmark. ❚ Even though she was just 8 when she landed the role, “some people thought I was dangerous,” says McCormack, 73. “I remember people at the stage door during the play saying, ‘ Do you ever want to kill anybody?’ I’d just laugh.”
McCormack is tipping her hat to the film that made her a horror icon with Lifetime’s remake (Sunday, 8 EDT/PDT), which stars Rob Lowe in what’s also his directorial debut. The actress appears in a short but pivotal scene as psychiatrist Dr. March, who’s asked to evaluate young Emma (Mckenna Grace) when her father (Lowe) begins to suspect that she killed a classmate.
After a frank conversation about death and empathy with the stone-faced Emma, Dr. March smilingly comforts her, saying, “I did the exact same things as you when I was your age.” She assures Emma’s dad that his daughter is “perfectly average” and “reminds me of myself.”
“It’s the most delicious thing, and I think ‘Bad Seed’ fans will enjoy it,” Lowe says of the wry homage, which he worked into the script after McCormack signed on. The scene was inspired by the lengthy, intense interviews depicted in Netflix crime drama “Mindhunter,” in which “two people sit and assess each other, and yet it’s interesting and funny.”
McCormack was initially skeptical about appearing in the latest version of the project. A 1985 ABC remake starring Lynn Redgrave was flambeed by critics, and her experience with the original “was such a special thing in my life,” she says. But “I was excited because Rob was doing it. It’s so different from the original, and I feel like he brought it into the present time.”
Lowe, 54, first saw Mervyn LeRoy’s film as a child and found it groundbreaking. “Without it, you’d never have ‘The Exorcist’ or ‘ The Omen,’ ” he says. “The notion that a child could be so evil was revo- lutionary” at the time.
But he recognized that the movie is dated: It was staged like a play and features broad performances. He opted for a chillier take on the material, employing nightmarish dream sequences and injecting dark humor into the passive-aggressive exchanges between Emma and her new nanny, Chloe (Sarah Dugdale, playing a genderswapped version of suspecting caretaker Leroy from the original). In another switch, Lowe made the child’s single parent her father, fueling Emma’s rage when Chloe swoops in and starts flirting with him.
For all the changes, “Bad Seed” fans will be pleased that much of the dialogue is lifted directly from the original film and William March novel that was the source material for the play. Rhoda’s iconic line — “What will you give me for a basket of kisses?” — is given a chilling twist early in the new movie as Emma gazes into a mirror and practices how to say it to her dad.
“She has no feelings but has learned how to read a room and knows social cues,” Lowe says. “She has to practice being like others, so her practicing ‘basket of kisses’ is a really important moment to introduce that character.”