Devonne Brown

The Bad Seed

I still can’t watch The Bad Seed without getting the heebie jeebies. The first time I saw it, I was about ten years old, and it was a Saturday after the cartoons had all gone off. Mom was busy doing mom things, the brothers and sisters were gone, maybe everyone was. But the movie and I were alone together. Could it have been at night? 

I remember the innocence of a blond little girl with braided pigtails. Although the movie was in black and white, I know she had blue eyes. My memory has her in a blue pinafore dress with a checkered blouse underneath, red, white, and blue, the all American colors. I wouldn’t have known, because again, it was black and white.

The child was the picture of innocence, except she wasn’t. She did terrible, deadly things to other people, adults and especially children. No one saw her do anything. It was what was said about her. Her words and threats made her scary. The child was evil, a demon. She had big eyes that never laughed, only looked straight at others when her lips smiled. Her eyes were dead. 

Her mother was onto her evil. She admitted it too. The girl and her mom discussed it. What were they ever to do? The kid had no intention of stopping and the mother was powerless.

How can you fix something inherently evil? The girl’s mother’s job was to protect her child or was it to protect her community? She knew whomever played with her daughter would suffer terribly, or even die. How could she send her to school? What would you do if she were your child?

Years later, I crossed a picket line to watch the movie The Last Temptation of Christ. The devil was represented by a beautiful blond, blue eyed, innocent girl, younger than the girl in the bad seed. I believe that scene was one of many that was being protested by the mainstream churches too, but my mind immediately went to the Bad Seed.

I love Renfield’s Dracula. One of my favorite movies is Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer. They are valiant and fun movies that make fun of themselves. Most slasher movies and the Freddy Kruger franchise don’t even interest me. They are ridiculous.

 Evil scares me.