The Vice Movie Club - Bad Ronald

For the latest VICE Movie Club, I invited a new gaggle of artists, directors, and cine-pals to submit their thoughts on Bad Ronald, an oddball thriller that smartly answers the question, "What if a delusional art dude secretly painted and lived inside the walls of your childhood home?" Originally broadcast on ABC in 1974, the film avoids the bad seed slasher trappings implied by its title, using network restrictions and a milk-and-cookies sleepy couch charm to its advantage. When Ronald Wilby, a friendly, awkward high school kid, kills a girl, his overbearing, doting mother enacts a plan to slyly block off a restroom in their two-story home. There Ronald can hide from the cops and the world and be served homecooked meals and motherly advice. Perhaps forever so.

When she dies, however, a new nuclear family soon moves in, leaving Ronald to live out his adolescence alone while painting Atranta, an elaborate, Henry Dargerish regal fantasyland, upon his limited wall-space. With Ronald's penchant for peepholes and trapdoors and his knack for carefully rummaging the fridge and diary of his invaders, the film's tone can kinda-maybe be labeled Afterschool De Palma, although many of the contributors below would probably agree it's much weirder and radder still.

TOBACCO - MUSICIAN (MANIAC MEAT; FUCKED UP FRIENDS)
The kill scene is pretty good. I like how kids used to kill kids in movies. This film was made for TV and it really felt like it. But otherwise, it's a pretty awesome premise for a movie, and I can't say I've seen anything like it. What I'd like is for a visionary like Michael Bay to come in and really slime fuck this story into 2011. I can see it working really well as a remake, but Michael Bay just needs to cram his crusty shingle dick into the right script to make it sparkle. So the remake is gonna be badass. The original's cool too, though. Actually, thinking about it more, I really loved this movie. It was always moving and never wasted any time. The music was kind of like M*A*S*H, so that was good too. No holes to be poked.

TIM LEAGUE - CEO/FOUNDER (THE ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE)
Bad Ronald transcends a low-budget and a bit of overacting to become a genuinely creepy, tight little film. While I ultimately craved more intensity from the climax, Bad Ronald is one of the best made-for-TV horror films ever. The book (by Jack Vance, from which the film was adapted) apparently gets very dark and violent, and I could clearly feel the director yearning to intensify the action were he not so hampered by the content guidelines of 1970s network TV. But despite a few minor warts, I really love this movie. Take my praise with a caveat though. Being a bit of a nerd myself, I have a soft spot for geek protagonists so that probably bolsters my enthusiasm.

From the first scene featuring Ronald’s lonely birthday dinner with Mom, you know he probably hangs out in the chess club more often than the locker room. He’s an awkward loser, but his nerdiness is never overplayed. And apart from the STUPID FUCKING DECISION to bury his first manslaughter victim, Ronald’s unfortunate situation, and eventual descent into madness, is pretty believable. You have to loathe Ronald because he’s a super creeper. At the same time, you have sympathy for the kid. I must say, though, Ronald was living exclusively in a bathroom for several months and you can almost smell him through the screen towards the end.

MOLLY SODA - ARTIST
Oh Ronald, you never get a break. Girls don't like you and you accidentally killed like two people. Accidents happen, it's OK. Yeah, your mom's a little crazy, but it's a secret blessing that she left to go to the hospital and died... now you can focus on your art. Girls like artists. I'd totally let you live in a secret room in my house and paint pictures of me. I can't believe that blonde chick didn't wanna run away with you. She just doesn't get you like I do. <3

THOMAS DE NAPOLI - MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTOR (DAS RACIST - "WHO'S THAT BROOOWN?")
When I was growing up in the 80s I was terrified of being kidnapped. I was convinced that all of the following things were absolutely true: Everyone driving a panel van was a kidnapper; kidnappers tried to trick children into their cars by wearing silicone masks that looked exactly like the child's parents; kidnappers stalked department stores holding chloroform soaked rags just waiting for kids to get separated from their moms. This intense paranoia was created and fed by countless made-for-TV movies and after-school specials about "stranger danger." I say all this because had I grown up in the 70s and seen a Movie of the Week like Bad Ronald, whereby it's fully plausible for a psychopath to live inside the walls of your family's home, I would have been even more traumatized. I also would have camped out in my backyard until college. This made me think about how there were some pretty fucked up movies in the 70s. Then I thought about Human Centipede. And that made me think that we're living in truly scary times.

I feel like I haven't sold Bad Ronald hard enough, so here are a list of my favorite moments: Before going to bed, Dabney Coleman's character does 60 sit-ups… and pounds a tall boy (of beer)*; a random extra in a high school pool party scene has a fully receding hairline and a thick mustache; Ronald is totally psyched that he got a toolbox for his 16th birthday. "It's got everything!"

*Just to clarify, Dabney Coleman did not have sex with a guy in this movie.