should have thought a sort of shattered pity would be more likely than a relentless, vengeful hate. Not since that brilliantly menacing film ??The Omen?? have I seen any child portrayed with such malevolence as is the young Kevin. I do hope the child involved banks his cheque and stops acting now. Playing that role again will surely be bad for him. Kevin is every mother??s nightmare. The book has been described as a long propaganda treatise against giving birth at all.  The one genuinely funny scene in the film shows his sleep-starved mother, haggard and utterly exhausted by the baby Kevin??s incessant screaming,  deliberately parking baby and pram next to a pneumatic drill at full volume, presumably so she can??t hear the screaming any more. Yet faintly, through the roar and rattle of the drill, Kevin??s lusty yells can still be heard. Nothing will stop him. Nothing short of nuclear war can drown him out. Many parents who have experienced such things will see this as an exaggerated portrayal of the problems of babies who won??t sleep and like to scream. Others, whose babies slept sweetly, will not. Later Kevin spitefully vandalises his mother??s beautifully-decorated study, and wages a long, revolting war over what may be delicately described as potty training. He finally gives in on this matter,  after his mother, moved to rage by his behaviour, lashes out and accidentally breaks Kevin??s arm, also scarring him. This is a very odd moment. The hospital never suspects that the