Rating: 3/5
Hoop-Tober | 5/31 | Decades 5/10 | 70s
Jordorowsky’s The Bad Seed
A showdown between John Huston and an eight-year-old named Katy Collins. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus surrogate teaching bald children about the ancient rivalry between the alien prisoner Zatteen and Yahweh. The unremarkable skyline of Atlanta, Georgia, set to Franco Micalizzi’s epic score.
These are our introductions to Giulio Paradisi’s star-studded sci-fi escapade. Sounds sick, right? It’s too bad it tames after this.
There are a few laugh-out-loud scenes. The gun at the birthday party is pretty great. Also, the exchange where the new housekeeper proclaims, “Capricorns are the worst!” and then Katy emerges to exclaim, “I’m a Capricorn!” as the score grows tense. The ice skating rink scene is pretty wild.
Critics at the time unfairly compared this to The Exorcist, The Birds, The Omen, and any horror movies with vaguely similar elements. But critics were also dead-set on anything Italian being a rip-off of something from Hollywood.
I wanted to like this as much as other folks on Letterboxd. I enjoyed the movie, but it never reaches the fever pitch the material craves.