Also released as
- La mala semilla
- A Tara Maldita
- A Semente Maldita
- La Mauvaise Graine
- Katarameni spora
Filed under
The Bad Seed
The Bad Seed is a 1956 American psychological horror film directed by Mervyn LeRoy.
The Production Code would not let a child murderer go free, so it ends with a spanking. See it anyway.
goreledger editorial rating: 6/10 · Read the review
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The Production Code would not permit a child murderer to go unpunished, so Rhoda is struck by lightning, and then the cast take a curtain call in which her mother turns her over and spanks her.
That ending is the most famous thing about it and it is worth watching for the whiplash alone.
Everything before it is the film. Patty McCormack plays an eight-year-old with immaculate braids and perfect manners who kills a schoolmate over a penmanship medal, and she plays it without a single wink. She was eleven when the film opened and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Nancy Kelly plays the mother working out what she has raised, and the performance is enormous in the stage sense because the whole cast came from the Broadway production.
The play had no such problem with its ending. The novel had none either.
Goreledger editorial rating
6 / 10
Patty McCormack's flawless, unwinking child killer is the entire reason to watch. The cast carries a stage production's volume, which makes it feel theatrical, and the Code-mandated curtain-call ending is a curiosity rather than a payoff.
Our opinion, not an average. How we rate
Goreledger editorial profile
Describes the film, not its quality: high gore means very gory.
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Trailer
The sleeves
The same film, sold as a different film in each territory. Click any of them.
Where to watch
Australia
Canada
UK
USA
Legal sources only. Availability data from JustWatch via TMDB.
Checked 9 Aug 2026
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