GurlyIamBeach
Instant Favorite.
Peereddi
I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
NutzieFagin
Ahhh The ABC Friday Movie of the Week! If you couldn't get a date, at least they had something decent playing on the boob tube! Okay! I was only twelve yrs old when this gem came on T.V but boy, I remember that this movie creep-ed me out so much--The noises in the attic and taps on the wall kinda made me wary that I may not be alone in my house after all.Anyway, the plot is simple. Ronald is a shy awkward, sort of geeky high school boy that is taunted by one of the pretty popular girls one afternoon. He lashes out at her in anger by striking her, she accidentally falls hitting a rock killing her instantly. Horrified, Ronald confesses the crime to his widowed mother, who wants desperately to protect her only son by hiding him from the police. She fixes up a false room accessible by only a small door and she is somewhat successful until she finds out she has to leave him because she needs a surgical procedure. All is planned until her return, but what she didn't plan on was dying on the operating table. Ronald is therefore left alone on his own devices wondering where his mother is. He finally reasons out the truth when a new family moves in the house that she is dead.Poor lonely Ronald now is in a mess. He steals the family's food and possessions to survive. He doesn't leave because he does not know where to go. But he then grows somewhat mentally twisted from his loneliness. He starts spying on the family more in a not so nice way-especially the young teen aged daughter. He begins to equate her with the girl who originally bullied him. Will Ronald go...well bad...and something awful will happen? I wish this film would be shown again because I'm sure it will become a cult favorite. If anyone does see this listed, I heartily recommend seeing it.
Michael_Elliott
Bad Ronald (1974) *** (out of 4) Creepy made-for-TV thriller about a nerdy boy named Ronald (Scott Jacoby) who is constantly picked one. One day a girl insults his mother so he accidentally kills her. Ronald tells his mother (Kim Hunter) what he has done and she suggests that he live behind the walls until everything can blow over. She goes in for an operation and dies, which means the house gets sold to a new family who Ronald stalks from behind the walls. OK, it's highly unlikely Ronald could have lived behind the walls but I'm willing to let this slide because the story itself is so good and so interesting that one can overlook a flaw here and there. I was really shocked at how drawn in I was and by the time the 70-minutes was over I had found a new favorite. The movie has an overall creepy feel from the start of the film when we see the relationship between Ronald and his mother and it gets creepier as the film goes along as Ronald slowly begins to lose his mind. The "friendships" he builds behind the walls, which forces him to come out is rather creepy and handled extremely well here. The scene where he confronts the youngest daughter living in the house has some great suspense and does the ending, which closes everything up quite nicely. I thought Jacoby was very good in his role and make the character quite believable as did Hunter. Dabney Coleman, Pippa Scott, Cindy Fisher, Cindy Eilbacher and a young Lisa Eilbacher (AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN) round out the cast and also deliver fine work. The 70's were a pretty good decade for made-for-TV films and this one has gotten one of the best reputations out there and for good reasons.
Coventry
"Bad Ronald" enjoys quite an impressive cult reputation, despite "only" being a low-budgeted and made-for-TV film from the early 70's, so I simply had to check it out to see what all the fuzz is about. I can't deny "Bad Ronald" has something irresistibly special! The atmosphere is thoroughly unsettling and Scott Jacoby portrays a strangely menacing Ronald. There are no special effects or bloody massacres in this film, yet it's an engaging little thriller with a fairly original premise. Ronald is a geeky and slightly peculiar teenager who lives with his dominant and overly protective mother. He's obsessed with his personally created comic book universe, yet his mother insists on becoming a prominent doctor. When Ronald accidentally murders a young girl after she mocked him one too many times, his mother sees no other solution than to construct an extra lair in their house and hide him from the cops. Then when mommy doesn't return from the hospital one day after a routine operation, Ronald remains hidden in the house and new tenants move in. Slowly going insane from loneliness and paranoia, Ronald mistakes the new tenants' daughter for his comic book heroine. The script is a little too far-fetched to be plausible and it definitely contains too many improbabilities, like the bizarrely noisy neighbor Mrs. Shumacher, for example, and the fatal gal blather operation. But at least it's never boring or exaggeratedly ridiculous, so I'm certainly not complaining. Ronald's parental house provides the film with a uniquely sinister setting, complete with hideous wallpaper & furniture, peepholes and secret cupboard passageways. Especially considering it's a TV-production, "Bad Ronald" is well photographed, suspenseful and it approaches several themes that are appealing to fans of grim 70's exploitation. Recommended!
Amanda Pichurko
I remember watching this movie when I was probably 13 years old. It came on late Friday or Saturday night, probably in a series called "Up All Night". If I remember correctly that was on the USA network. I remember that this movie, scared the crap out of me. The one scene where his neighbor is peeking in the window, still haunts me because I can still see her face. I wish they would release it to DVD. It gives me the creeps, but I will watch it again. If anyone knows where I can find it on DVD please let me know. It has been 18 years and I still think about it every now and then. It probably helped contribute to my insomnia when I was a kid. HA HA.
