Bad Ronald As You've Never Seen Him Before (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

I've been planning to tackle the central and most infamous in the rather demented trilogy of psychological horror films of the underrated young actor Scott Jacoby for a while now.  But when Warner Archives announced their intention to reissue the film on blu, I decided to wait.  And boy am I glad I did, because this new version, released just in time for the Halloween film, opens up a whole new chapter in Bad Ronald's life.
For those who don't know, which is surely most of the film-going world, the trilogy starts with Rivals and ends with The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.  Of course, these aren't Jacoby's only forays into the horror genre - he's pretty good in the To Die For movies - but these three are joined together by a common theme of taboo-twisting murder.  They'd actually be more aptly described as dark cult films rather than horror.  And what makes Bad Ronald all the more infamous is that it was filmed and released as a made for network TV movie of the week.  What a weird thing to throw in front of mainstream viewers, but hey, it was the 70s; filmmakers were bold back then.
Bad Ronald's actually based on a book, of the same title, written by Jack Vance, which is even darker.  It tells the story of a boy who accidentally (purposefully in the novel) kills a young neighborhood girl, so his mother keeps him hidden when the police come for him.  She builds a secret room for him so he can live at home without anyone finding out, and it's just the two of them for years until one day she goes out and never comes home again.  So he lives alone, inventing a fantasy world he calls Atranta, and hiding from reality in a home everyone comes to believe is abandoned.  Until one day the property is sold and a new family moves in, replete with three young daughters, none of whom have any idea that they're surrounded by concealed doorways, tunnels, peep holes and a very lonely, homicidal occupant.
If you're looking for high production values, thrilling set pieces or glossy gore, this isn't the film for you.  There are at least as many horror aficionados baffled by the appeal of this film as enamored with it.  For one thing, this is an old TV movie, which means no R-rated sequences or bad language and a boxy, fullscreen aesthetic.  And as great as Dabney Coleman always is, he and much of the rest of the supporting cast feel out of place here, like they've accidentally wandered off their sitcom set for the day.  But on the other hand, casting couldn't get much more perfect than Jacoby and Kim Hunter as his mother.  And the girls do have a bit of classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre victim vibe to them.  Just know that this isn't about being suspenseful and scary so much as creepy and unsettling.

By the way, apparently this film was remade about twenty years later in France under the title Méchant Garçon.  As far as I know, that film's never even been translated into English; but I'd sure love to see it some day.
Anyway, unsurprisingly, this film was unavailable on home video for a long time.  It was the just the kind of neglected, off-beat flick fans traded memories and VHS bootlegs of on news boards and conventions.  So it was a very welcome surprise when Warner Archives included it in their series of MOD DVDs in 2009.  It was completely no frills, of course (just look at their zero effort DVD menu, pictured right!); but just to have an official copy was a major win for fans.  But now, presumably in recognition of Bad Ronald's immortal cult status, Warners have taken another stab at it, this time in HD, and oh man, they really got it right!
2009 US Warner Bros DVD top; 2018 US Warner Bros blu-ray bottom.
Warner's DVD was clearly taken from an old tape master; though admittedly, it's not like it would've looked much better when it first aired in '74.  But clearly, for the blu, they were able to locate some original film elements and give them an entirely fresh scan.  Where to even begin?  The DVD is dreadfully interlaced.  We're not even talking intermittent frames like most interlaced DVDs we come across... every single frame is interlaced.  Thankfully, that's completely fixed.  And the drained, sapped colors have been fully restored and brought back to full vibrancy.  The weird aspect ratio of 1.28:1 has been corrected, too, to 1.33:1, adding picture to the sides and especially the previously cramped bottom, which had been giving the DVD an odd, misframed look to it.  There's still some headroom on the blu, suggesting perhaps that the filmmakers were keeping the possibility of a widescreen transfer open, but now we've finally got a correct 1.33:1.  Film grain is soft and hard to discern, but it's a real HD image, and compared to what we had before, practically a whole new movie.
The DVD's audio was surprisingly clear given the picture, but the blu still improves things by restoring the original mono tracks in lossless 2.0 DTS-HD.  Neither edition has any special features at all (there wouldn't have even been a theatrical trailer, after all), but you can still see the extra care put into this release.  I mean, they actually bothered to make a menu this time, and chapter stops are thoughtfully placed at key scenes and commercial break fade-outs rather than arbitrary ten minute increments.  Even better, they've created English SDH subtitles, another feature the DVD sorely lacked.
I wasn't expecting much from this release... I figured I'd be getting the same old video transfer just without the SD compression.  And I only bothered because crazy little film has such cut out its only little niche in my heart.  So I was delighted to pop it in and discover Warners had done this total restoration job on it.  So if you had similar thoughts, like why bother replacing a barebones DVD with a barebones blu-ray, well, now you see why.  This one gets a huge DVDExotica stamp of approval!

1 comment:

  1. Nicely written.....the movie is much more a tragedy then an outright horror story like Vance's book. Still,very cool to see these little made for TV films get a chance to be seen once again.

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