The Good Son

I remember seeing TV spots for 1993's The Good Son.  It was a big deal that Macaulay Culkin had shot an R-rated film, much less one where he played the villain.  None of the other factors seemed to matter.  His co-stars, the plot, even the genre...Culkin was such a solvent vendible, his drawing power obscured the rest of the project.  Remember, he was in a Michael Jackson video.  The kid was fucking huge, and if you were the right age, you wanted to be him.  Then you hated him (he was too high-profile).  Nowadays, I just want to bang him, but that's beside the point.  Is Son worth watching?

Did I admit to wanting to bang Culkin?  I mistyped.  I meant that I wanted to bang him.  Anyway, this is an above-average domestic thriller.  All of the varnish and trimmings can't hide the simple fact that Son is another "evil kid" flick to add to the ever-distending mound of variations on The Bad Seed.  But is that necessarily the nadir of entertainment?  No!  This is not an original picture, but it's still a reasonable way to spend 87 minutes.  Elijah Blue plays Mark, a boy whose mother dies young as a result of...cancer?  I don't believe that we are ever told the specific illness that claims her life.  Mark must li--PARVO!  No, that's not it.  I want to say leptospirosis, but only because it's a cool word.

Mark is sent to live with his aunt and uncle until his father returns from Japan (he's there on business).  They have a couple of kids.  Connie is a cute, precocious little girl.  Harry is a seemingly normal boy.  Seemingly.  I appreciated the agile pace, as Son doesn't burn daylight getting to the point.  Why shilly-shally?  I do have a complaint to lodge.  Harry is a cunning, calculating son of a bitch, but that's where the script parts ways with reality.  He's too clever.  I'm merely guessing, but I'd wager that he was 11 or 12 at the oldest.  The things he says, the way he says them, and the things he does reminded me that I was skimming leaves of Hollywood fiction.

Making the best out of a tipsy situation, Culkin gives an amazing performance as the venal, dissolute Harry.  It would have been easy to go over the top.  I'm sure it was tempting, seeing as how Mac wasn't offered these types of roles very often.  Instead, he stays cold and aloof.  If Michael Myers ever talked or acted like a regular child, he would be Harry.  And I want to clarify something, if I may.  Earlier, I joked about banging Culkin.  To set the record straight, I want to fuck Culkin's hands.  Woah, woah!  His skull.  I want to fuck his skull, not his hands.  I'm not a sex pest.

Elijah Blue is perfectly sympathetic as the actual good son.  I was in his corner from the first frame to the last.  Clearly, director Joseph Ruben succeeded more than he failed.  I typically veer away from domestic thrillers, but this whippersnapper kept my attention.  Don't disown The Good Son.  Robert Z'Dar says, "I would also fuck Macaulay Culkin.  Yes, with my chin."