My sister and I saw this on TV in 1988 when we were teenagers. We watched it after school. We thought it was amusing and downright funny at times. It never even occured to us that it was supposed to be a horror film.
Same here. I thought it was a funny movie. I guess Ronald is more evil in the book. I have not read the book, since it is impossible to find.
shareThere were some creepy moments when the young girls were alone in the house. But because, I think, we mainly see things from Ronald's persepctive (by and large sympathetically portrayed), overall the movie isn't too scary. I always thought it was more of a story about a misunderstood kid than a horror film.
share1988 is nearly 15 years removed from when the movie debuted. Times change and audiences quickly become desensitized to things. By comparison, the hand-from-the-grave scene at the end of "Carrie" had become a horrible cliché by 1988 -- but it caught 1976 audiences completely off guard and terrified them. And stuff that freaked me out in 1988 seems completely inane today. At the time of "Bad Ronald," most horror was more psychological... it was the same year that "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" came out -- which was unlike anything anyone had ever seen -- and horror jutted off in a completely new direction.
I turned 10 a week or so before the movie showed on TV and remember being scared. The scene where the family sees the light through the hole and suddenly his eye appears, I recall that scaring the crap out of my 10-year old self.
sharelol it's alot of things but scary is not one of them
Maybe in the 70's if you were a kid it would be scary but not by todays standards... or even 80's standards as you suggest
A good father and a good outlaw can't settle inside the same man.
I saw this as a kid in the 70s on TV, and I have very fond memories of it. But that's also one of the reasons I've been reluctant to watch it again, 40+ years later. I doubt very much it's held up at all, and if I saw it today, it would probably destroy my childhood remembrances of how it creeped me the hell out at the time.
There are a few other made-for-TV productions like this. One is the 1980 PBS adaptation of The Lathe of Heaven. The other is the early 1980s ABC After School Special that I think they also later made into a prime-time movie, called The Wave. Both have remained as with me for decades, but I suspect if I re-watched them, the magic I remember from that moment would be crushed by the awkwardness of outdated production values.
Sometimes, it seems, films really are meant to be enjoyed "in the moment," like a play or a concert.
____
As a reward for your bravery, you will both find permanent homes on adult contemporary radio.