31 Days of Feminist Horror Films: THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE + THE BAD SEED

Alone on Halloween in a big New England house, with no one to help her blow out the candles that signal her arrival into teenagerdom, Jodie Foster’s Rynn celebrates her thirteenth birthday. That is, until a glassy-eyed charmer, Frank (Martin Sheen at his most manic) shows up with a light-up pumpkin and insists on being let into her home, on the pretense of meeting her father, promising that his children are only a few houses behind. Rynn puts him off, insisting that her father, a poet, is working, and Frank seizes the opportunity to flirt with Rynn in the way that older men who favor young girls do: paternalistic verbal jabs and innocent-seeming grabs, until he goes for Rynn’s backside, and she screams him out of the house. The foundation of THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE rests on Frank’s, relentless pursuit of Rynn, and how Rynn’s continues to evade him…and the other adults in her life who stay curious about the whereabouts of her father, and of her long-absent mother. What exactly is the little girl who lives down the lane hiding?

The late 1970s gave us lots of “children in peril” movies, but few have a protagonist as compelling as Foster in THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE. She’s allowed to play Rynn’s frank amorality with the kind of panache usually only reserved for salty, middle-aged male antiheroes. Rynn has done some very bad things in the name of self-preservation, and because of this, she can also sniff out Frank’s taste for young girls from the moment she meets him. Mrs. Hallet (Alexis Smith), Frank’s mother and Rynn’s wealthy, well-connected landlady, has long done everything she can to hide her son’s aberrant sexual tastes: an old woman supporting rape culture for her own sense of dignity and the dignity of her son, even though she knows he’s a real-life monster. Mrs. Hallet grows hysterical when Rynn confronts her with this knowledge, and Rynn doesn’t hesitate when it becomes apparent that the only way to get Mrs. Hallet off her back is to silence her…which Rynn does by bashing her head in with the cellar door.

It’s a brutal act for a young girl, but Rynn seems nonplussed: she’s already got someone else down there, decomposing. Rynn approaches the murder clinically: this isn’t a girl possessed by Satan or seduced by a vampire’s kiss, this is a savvy, resourceful teenager who’s witnessed decade of death, live on television thanks to the Vietnam War and the rise of the American serial killer. Rynn refuses to become the victim or lose her agency, whatever the cost might be for her survival.

Cold and clinical as she may be when it comes to self-preservation, Rynn is also acutely lonely: she doesn’t go to school for fear of being found out, and has no other family to speak of. It’s just Rynn alone, in a chilly old house, forever the outsider not only because of the secrets she keeps in the cellar (an omnipresent sexual metaphor in a variety of ways throughout the film), but because she’s new in town, and Jewish, something Mrs. Hallet highlights derisively. This changes when Rynn meets another outsider: Mario (Scott Jacoby) an Italian teenage magician with a limp who happens upon Rynn trying to get rid of Mrs. Hallet’s Bentley. At first, it seems like Rynn and Mario’s friendship will be only that.

But when Mario springs to her defense after a crazed, late-night visit from Frank — who knows Rynn has something to with his mother’s disappearance — Rynn feels comfortable enough with Mario to talk to him about her interior life. In one of the film’s best scenes, Rynn gives the kind of speech usually only reserved for noir protagonists: she talks about her own feelings of alienation and her father’s awareness of how “special” his little girl was, and how she learned to “make herself small in the big bad world.”

Rynn tells Mario about how her father’s instructions led her to poison her mother’s tea following his own suicide in the sea. Instead of reacting with repulsion, Mario helps her move their bodies, and bury her mother and Mrs. Hallet outside. He catches a cold doing so, and when Rynn offers to warm him up, it leads to their shared loss of virginity in a very low-key, grounded scene that focuses on the aftermath of the act.

The film treats teenage sexuality with an uncommon frankness — there’s certainly no big dramatic change in Rynn with soft piano on the soundtrack during the act itself. As awkward outsiders in a small town, Rynn and Mario feel natural together, and by their second night together, they’re sleeping in Rynn’s twin bed like an old married couple.

It is, however, worth noting that Foster has stated that the film’s producers made her feel uncomfortable during filming, and rarely talks about the film. One can understand why during a switcheroo nude scene with Foster’s sister, Connie, that made it appear as if thirteen-year old Foster was actually naked before getting into bed with Mario. This is an unfortunate real-life footnote on what is an otherwise desexualized, deglammed take on a sexually active teenage girl, sleeping with another, gawky teenager. Foster wears incredibly modest clothing and no make-up in the film, and is notably eroticized only by Frank, in his verbal fantasies of what he’d like to do to her, but Rynn and Mario’s scenes together as a couple still convey an adult sense of true intimacy that is rarely afforded to teenage characters.

But of course, in the classic fairytale tradition, this is ultimately a story about a little girl and a creepy old man…and how exactly she’ll beat him. After Mario’s cold turns into pneumonia, Rynn is left to defend her home and her dignity all by herself, knowing that Frank is lurking nearby — a set-up that would become common for final girls that followed Rynn. After emerging from the cellar, having learned Rynn’s ickiest secrets, Frank prowls around her living room, ready to pounce at any possible opportunity. Frank proposes a deal: he’ll keep her secrets safe if she begins a sexual relationship with him. But if the film’s shown us anything, it’s that Rynn will not have her sense of personal safety threatened. She poisons Frank’s tea with potassium cynanide, and Frank, of course, thinks he’s outsmarted her and insists in drinking from Rynn’s own teacup, which she has of course poisoned too.

But even as Frank succumbs to the poison, he can’t stop being predatory towards Rynn — in the film’s disturbing final close up on Rynn, we see only Frank’s hand, fruitlessly grabbing for Rynn’s face, while he wheezes about how pretty her hair is. For Rynn to get away with everything and seemingly ride off into the sunset with Mario is a radical ending choice, especially given the extremely minor amount of onscreen violence that it’s taken for Rynn to murder three adults and continue on with her independent, semi-hermetic existence.

The whole movie could work as a parlor-room mystery on stage (it was adapted as such in 1997) and greatly benefits from the inherent tension of a young girl alone in a big old house, without any jump scares or gore necessary to convey the danger that surrounds a young woman in such a precarious situation. Despite two stellar lead performances from Foster (who also gave star-making performances in BUGSY MALONE, FREAKY FRIDAY, and TAXI DRIVER within the same year) and Sheen, at his mega-creepy, wide-eyed BADLANDS-y best, THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE is semi-forgotten — a travesty. It’s a truly singular viewing experience in suspense, with a totally self-possessed heroine who understands the dangers of the very adult, very male world around her, and will do whatever is necessary to survive.

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE is available from Vudu.

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE makes for an ideal “bad girls” double feature with THE BAD SEED. Both films are about young women who are “born bad,” and each narrative explores exactly what that means for each girl — Rynn reserves her violence for those who threaten her safety, as does Rhoda to a certain extent…but Rhoda’s alos willing to kill anyone who stands in her way, even another child. THE BAD SEED is ultimately told from Rhoda’s mother’s point of view, giving the audience a bit of perspective on her sociopathy, but THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE is all about Rynn, and as a result, features some complex questions about the development of young women with a predilection towards violence.

A true original in the evil kid genre, THE BAD SEED was a massive hit upon its release in 1956, garnering four Academy Award nominations, three of them for its lead actresses, including one for our own lil’ antiheroine, Patty McCormack, who delivers an incredible performance in the film as Rhoda Penmark. THE BAD SEED explores shifting attitudes about motherhood in the late 1950s, the increasing popularity of psychotherapy, and the undue shame that’s often felt by adopted and foster children to become a complex, wildly entertaining parlor drama.

There’s no doubt that Rhoda was born bad, but in exploring exactly what that means, THE BAD SEED also delves deep into the psyche of her mother, Christine (Nancy Kelly) a “normal” housewife who struggles to balance disturbing revelations about her own lineage while trying to parent such an aberrant child while her beloved husband Kenneth (William Hopper) is away. So shocking at the time of its release that Warner Bros. included a final title card urging audiences not to give the ending away, THE BAD SEED endures fifty years later because it is ultimately a story of how a mother and daughter must come to terms with the capacity for evil that exists within both of them.

Little Rhoda Penmark looks and acts like an absolutely perfect child: she insists on pink frilly dresses and tight pleated braids while her peers go for dirty blue jeans, and is polite to an alarming degree — so polite in fact, that Christine tells her teacher she finds Rhoda’s “mature quality that’s disturbing for a child” deeply unsettling. Despite polite appearances, Rhoda’s furious as she heads to a school picnic at the beginning of the film, having lost a penmanship medal to Claude Daigle. While she’s gone, Christine discusses Freudian psychology and female serial killers — including the notorious Bessie Denker who was beautiful, ruthless, and never used the same poison twice — with her upstairs neighbor, the kindly Monica (Evelyn Varden) who dismisses mental health care outright.

The women learn that Claude has drowned at Rhoda’s picnic, and Christine is worried she’ll be traumatized, but when Rhoda returns home, she’s only interested in a peanut butter sandwich, unfazed by seeing Claude’s corpse. “Have you been naughty?” Monica asks, and Rhoda answers that she doesn’t feel any way at all — a true sociopath through and through. Rhoda’s teacher tells Christine Rhoda was pawing at Claude’s medal all day, but Christine pushes any doubt to the back of her mind…until Mrs. Daigle (Eileen Heckhart, nominated alongside McCormack and Kelly) shows up, drunk as a skunk, on her doorstep demanding answers. The film makes a sharp distinction between Christine and Rhoda’s plush lifestyle and Mrs. Daigle’s middle-class misery: “I’ve lost my boy and now I’m a lush. It’s a pleasure to stay drunk when your son is dead.”

Mrs. Daigle throws shade at the privileged life of the Penmarks because she’s in a grief spiral, and she correctly assumes that Rhoda had something to do with her son’s death, but cannot prove it. Because she’s drunk and “hysterical,” she’s seen as untrustworthy, especially by her husband who forces her out of the Penmarks home to protect his own dignity, silencing her voice while doing so. But as Christine notes, Rhoda is an adroit liar, and talks her way out of it, blaming it on her teacher for making up the story. Christine remains in denial, unable to admit that her daughter could be capable of such unimaginable evil.

Christine’s mind begins to change when she has a conversation with two older men, including her visiting father, about the idea of nature vs. nurture and genetic legacies. Both Christine and Rhoda have some strange daddy issues happening — they’re affectionate towards their fathers to the point of it being unsettling, and each woman is acutely concerned about her father’s opinion of her. Christine’s image of her perfect father when she learns the secret he’s kept from his daughter for her entire life: she is the daughter of serial killer Bessie Denker, adopted at an early age, and Bessie’s sociopathic tendencies have jumped a generation to Rhoda, who can kill without remorse to get what she wants. Her father’s betrayal crushes Christine to her core — the kind, platonic ideal of masculinity in her life has failed her totally. She feels intense guilt over giving birth to such a monstrous daughter, and struggles to reconcile the fact that she has same capability for violence that exists within Rhoda.

But what’s a loving mother to do with such a child, other than try to protect her? So Christine helps Rhoda destroy the murder weapon — steel tap shoes — because her daughter’s blood is her blood too, and she has no choice other than to tell Rhoda to throw the shoes in the incinerator. No amount of love, support, or positivity can change Rhoda’s genes, and Christine gives up on trying to change her daughter. “It isn’t what she’s done, it’s what I’ve done,” Christine proclaims, blaming herself for giving birth to such a creature.

Would abortion have been a choice if Christine would’ve known about her own heritage? A taboo question for 1956, but an interesting one to ponder. It’s still a rare thing for women to question their own progeny or obligation to produce children in film, and in 1956, it was practically unheard of. But THE BAD SEED grapples with these difficult questions, and Christine anchors the film — of course it’s incredibly fun to watch Rhoda lie, manipulate, and menace the adults around her, but without the impossible moral dilemma that takes over Christine’s pristine household, the film would be just another piece of evil kid exploitation.

There is one adult who isn’t charmed by Rhoda’s extremely polite persona: the groundskeeper, Leroy (Henry Jones.) He knows Rhoda is “smart and mean,” and like him, has duped those around her to think otherwise — he teases her about child-sized electric chairs before realizing that she’s actually killed Claude by finding the shoes as proof. Rhoda knows that her secret absolutely will not be safe with Leroy, so she lights his bedding on fire, and watches him die. As this is happening, Mrs. Daigel returns once again, absolutely convinced that Rhoda played a part in Claude’s death. But her concerns are dismissed a second time — they’re blamed on her drunkenness, and of course, Christine can’t admit the truth. Monica, a born meddler that represents antiquated female values, insists that Christine needs vitamins, or sleeping pills, or even a divorce to cure her woes — while she has an inkling that the trouble might have to do with Rhoda, she certainly can’t fathom that the sweet little girl is a serial killer.

After Leroy’s death is discovered, Christine becomes nearly catatonic: she reads Rhoda a bedtime story and gives her a lethal dose of Monica’s sleeping pills, tells her she helped cover up her crimes by throwing Claude’s penmanship medal into the lake where he drowned. Then, Christine does something entirely unexpected for a 1950s housewife: she shoots herself in the head, thinking that death for both of them is the only way to stop the evil in their blood. But, Rhoda survives while Christine falls into a coma, and looks forward to a future with her father only, since he’s totally wrapped around her finger, and her crimes are covered up for good. Ultimately, Rhoda’s pride gets the better of her: she returns to the lake during a thunderstorm for the medal, and is struck dead by lightning, an act of god ending her evil once and for all. And Christine miraculously survives, perhaps encouraged by the fact that Denker’s evil genes have died off in Rhoda…but she must also come to terms with the fact that that same capacity for violence exists within her.

THE BAD SEED is a thoughtful exploration of changing modes of motherhood in the late 1950s, as psychology became a prominent part of the lives of Americans, who were then forced to consider difficult questions about their “perfect” nuclear families. Christine must wrestle with the most horrific scenario a mother can possibly deal with: having a child who’s simply been born bad as a result of the genes Christine carries from her own mother. There’s nothing she has done or can do to change Rhoda, but instead of turning her daughter in, Christine’s guilt and the mother’s love she carries for Rhoda motivates her actions as Rhoda’s co-conspirator, and she aids and abets her little girl in murder.

It’s not an admirable choice, but it is a totally understandable one, and the film is highly sympathetic towards Christine’s impossible decision. And Rhoda is a little girl sociopath with no cinematic equal: she’s rotten to the core, but incredibly compelling — if only she would’ve lived to murder another day, and we could’ve seen her homicidal adventures throughout high school and college! The film has a progressive, meta sense of humor about itself: after the credits roll, Kelly puts McCormack across her own lap and playfully spanks her as both laugh, letting the audience know that the filmmakers are well aware of the film’s camp factor.

Once again, the freedom of horror allows four women who range in age from eight to eighty to star in what is essentially a single location film about repressed maternal fears, the rise of psychology in middle America, and one cute little girl’s ambitious, bloody journey for a penmanship medal.

THE BAD SEED is available from YouTube and other streaming services.