|
“Bad Ronald” is an example of the type of TV movies
made in the mid-70’s; it’s a B-movie or would have been
the bottom half of a double bill of exploitation films if
it had been released theatrically. Made in response to the
popularity of the type of films that American International
Pictures was releasing that was attracting young moviegoers,
“Bad Ronald” is part of Warner’s Archive series of DVD-R’s
that are burned on demand. These films typically are cult
classics that Warner has elected not to license out but,
instead, have used this new business model to release these
films themselves. The results are mixed to say the least
because while the best print possible is used just like
with a licensed film it’s not cleaned up significantly and
hasn’t been restored. That said, this is a viable model
for Warner to get out those cult classics (like the campy
“Doc Savage”) that otherwise might not see release on DVD
or released in a limited capacity. With the concern about
distribution costs and diminishing revenues for studios
and big retailers like Best Buy cutting back on their weird
catalog titles, this is a way to make these titles effective
in a cost effective package. ***
Directed by Buzz Kulik a TV and film director, who
made “Brian’s Song”, “Crawl Space”, the theatrical films
“Villa Rides” and often worked for Rod Serling on “Twilight
Zone”, “Bad Ronald” isn’t a bad movie just misunderstood
because of its title and themes. It’s actually an effective
TV movie in the vein of “Killdozer” (another TV movie that
has a cult following) but not quite up to the standards
of “The Night Stalker” or “Duel”. ***
Ronald (Scott Jacoby) doesn’t start off bad. He lives
in a creaky old Victorian house that wouldn’t have been
out of place in “Psycho” and with a controlling mother (Kim
Hunter “Planet of the Apes”) who makes Mrs. Bates seem normal.
When Ronald accidently kills a girl that he meets after
being humiliated by a girl from school he visits, Mom traps
him in the attic space over the bathroom in the house so
Ronald can avoid the police. When Ronald’s mom dies during
surgery he’s left alone. When a new family purchases the
home they unknowingly inherit Ronald who begins behaving
a bit…strangely as he spies on the family and does other
bizarre things to them. ***
“Bad Ronald” is creepy at best and at worst preposterous;
Is Ronald an only child? Why didn’t the police use an extensive
search warrant to look for the boy? Clearly they could observe
that the amount of rooms in the house is exceeded by the
visible space from the outside? Other flaws include characters
that aren’t very well fleshed out making it difficult to
care about them and you have no sense of who Ronald really
is aside from being the boogey man drilling holes in the
wall to spy on the comely daughter of the new owners. If
you can dismiss these lapses of logic you can enjoy “Bad
Ronald” for what it is—a TV exploitation thriller that takes
you on an entertaining ride with nice acting. --
Image & Sound:
There are many flaws with this title as well in the
image and sound department and I would have thought that
Warner would have worked these out already. The film is
presented in an interlaced format so it doesn’t look so
hot on high def TV’s. The colors are a bit faded and thre
is a bit of debris but that latter isn’t bad. Compression
artifacts are surprisingly slim. Detail is decent throughout
although sharpness is a little soft. ***
Audio is presented in the original mono and it is less
than optimal. Compressing the audio on the mono soundtrack
would have made the murky dialogue clearler. ---
|
