The Good Son

Plot synopsis:
In Arizona, 12-year-old Mark Evans (Elijah Wood) has recently experienced the death of his mother, Janice (Ashley Crow). Heading for a business trip to Tokyo, Mark's father Jack (David Morse) drives Mark to the home of his uncle Wallace (Daniel Hugh Kelly) and aunt Susan (Wendy Crewson) in Maine where he will stay during the winter break. Mark is reintroduced to his extended family, including his cousins Connie (Quinn Culkin) and Henry (Macaulay Culkin). Mark and Henry get along at first and Henry seems to be nice and well-mannered. However, Henry displays an abnormal fascination with death and his talk of the death of Mark's mother and that of his younger brother Richard, makes Mark feel uneasy.
Henry begins to display psychopathic behavior, which Mark is unable to tell Wallace and Susan about due to Henry's dark threats. One of Henry's violent actions is to throw a dummy off a bridge and on to the highway, causing a massive pileup. Later, Henry plans to kill his sister Connie. Afraid that something might happen to her, Mark spends the night in her room. The next morning, Mark awakens to find Henry has taken Connie ice skating. At the pond, Henry purposely throws Connie toward thin ice. The ice collapses and Connie nearly drowns but is rescued and taken to hospital. Susan becomes suspicious and sitting in the dark, out of view, is able to interrupt Henry when he visits Connie's room, planning to smother her.
Susan finds a rubber duck that Henry has hidden in the shed. It had once belonged to Richard and was with him in the bathtub the night he drowned, after which it went missing. When Susan confronts Henry, he coldly reminds her that the toy had belonged to him before it had been Richard's. He asks for the duck back but Susan refuses and Henry tries to take it from her. After a violent tug-of-war, Henry snatches the duck and runs to the cemetery where he throws it down a well. As Susan and Mark grow closer, Henry insinuates he will kill Susan rather than let Mark continue to develop a relationship with her.
When a fight breaks out between the two boys, Wallace locks Mark in the den. Henry asks a suspicious Susan to go for a walk with him, while Mark escapes the den and chases after them. Susan confronts Henry, asking him if he killed his brother. Henry replies, "What if I did?" Horrified by what her son has become, Susan tells Henry that he needs help but Henry flees into the woods. Susan gives chase and upon arriving at a cliff, Henry shoves her over the edge. As Susan dangles precariously, Henry picks up a large rock he intends to throw down at her but Mark intervenes and tackles his cousin. They fight and Henry viciously tries his best to kill Mark. Susan manages to pull herself up on to the clifftop and is just in time to dive forward and grab hold of the boys as they roll over the edge. Lying flat on the rock she hangs on to both boys, one in each hand. Henry holds on with both hands but Mark's one-handed grip begins to slip. Henry says, "Mom, I love you." Then Henry says to his mother, "I need your other hand." With only enough strength to save one of them. Susan, realizing the malevolence in Henry's nature, reluctantly releases him and he falls to his death. Susan pulls Mark up from the ledge and they look down upon Henry's body on the rocks below, before it is washed away into the sea. When Mark returns to Arizona, he reflects upon Susan's choice to save him instead of Henry and wonders if she would make the same choice again but knows it is something he will never ask her.

Tags: mystery, cruelty, murder, violence, good versus evil, melodrama, suspenseful

Review:
I think one of the interesting things was that people rated this movie really low because they didn't like the concept of an evil child or they added, there was no WHY concept to the reasons why the character did the things he did.
I think this is where people kind of go, "yeah, this movie is flawed, there's no such thing." But remember, little Frodo wasn't looking down the staircase at his mother hugging another son.
'The Good Son' revolves around Mark, a motherless boy of twelve who is sent to stay with his Uncle Wallace, Aunt Susan and two cousins, twelve-year-old Henry and six-year-old Connie.
It is a film that pulls no punches in just how malevolent Henry is and how easily he will pick off anyone who dares to interfere with his twisted sense of fun.Macaulay Culkin was excellent as the angelic-looking Henry whose boyish cuteness hide his true nature and his performance here proves he could have been one of the few child actors who graduated into a successful young adult actor had his personal life not been such a mess.
Young Wood, only eleven years old when he filmed this, delivered a great performance as a young boy faced with the awful truth and desperate to stop Henry while juggling his grief over losing his mother.
The scene where Mark is convinced Henry has poisoned the food is a perfect example of how Wood portrayed Mark's desperation, hysteria and helplessness in the face of his cousin's evil.However, one of the flaws of the film is that is a bit choppy, jumping from scene-to-scene without giving you a feel for the other characters, which is a shame because this is one film where you do need to have an understanding of just how Henry's nature affects all those around him and how he gets away with it all.
The book not only gives greater insight into Mark's budding fraternal friendship with Connie and his need to seek a mother in Susan but it also shows Susan's growing awareness to the monster Henry is and how she feels when she is made to choose between Mark and her murderous child.Overall, this film is enjoyable enough for a psychological thriller (although a few TV detective shows have done this idea in a slicker way) and it is nice to see a film that doesn't take a softly-softly attitude when dealing with the matter of children who kill.
Macaulay Culkin,(Henry Evans),"Party Monsters",'03, gave one of his best performances and really showed his great talents which made you hate him through out the entire picture.
It's the first movie I've seen where I was actually scared of the bad character, Henry [Macaulay Culkin] and the first movie I've seen where I find myself routing for the good character, Mark [Elijah Wood].
The Good Son is about Mark(Elijah Wood), a young boy suffering in the recent loss of his mother, going to visit his aunt, uncle, and two cousins in Maine while his dad takes a business trip to Tokyo.
Cousin Henry Evans(Macaulay Culkin) is Mark's age and they soon become good friends and have loads of fun each day, but soon Mark starts to see another side of Henry when they start putting some of Henry's ideas into action, including throwing a dummy called Mr.Highway over an overpass that causes a huge multi car wreck and a big smile on Henry's face, and shooting a dog with a homemade gun.
Elijah Wood is an unusually good boy, Macaulay Culkin is an unusually bad boy; both look perfectly real.
Henry turns out to be a psychopath and is determined to do anything to stop Mark from telling anyone else.This movie originally had a different director attached to it who (understandably) did not want Culkin in it.
OK a lot of critics said this movie was bad because Macaulay Culkin turns from the sweet kid from home alone to a freakish killing one, I mean a lot of websites I've seen said this movie it really bad, but the only bad thing they have to say about it, is that Macaulay goes bad, and that the kids don't understand how sick and twisted the character there playing or co-staring to really it, and thats all!!!
And it's still my favorite movie!I know most people thought that the ending was stupid, but I liked it.Elijah Wood and Macaulay Culkin both did great, and I highly recommend this movie to everyone!!10/10..
The Good Son (1993) ** (out of 4) When Mark (Elijah Wood) loses his mother and his father most go a business trip, he goes to stay with his family and at first everything seems great.
That's until he starts to realize that his cousin Henry (Macaulay Culkin) isn't normal yet none of the adults will believe him.I still remember all the hype surrounding this film when it first came out.
The biggest problem is certainly the screenplay because it's a rather generic story where we see Henry do one bad thing after another while the parents of course don't believe the really good kid.
I thought he handled the brat side of the character quite well but I never really believed we went far enough in showing how crazy or demented this kid was.THE GOOD SON is mildly entertaining in a cheap "B" movie kind of way but there's no question that as a thriller it's a failure..
What results is a mess of a movie that, at the time of its release, appealed to the wrong demographic entirely.Macaulay Culkin got the headlining credit, even though Elijah Wood is really the lead actor and the moral compass of the story.
It would be one thing if the child actors were unknowns, but since Culkin made a name for himself with the hugely popular "Home Alone" films, kids wanted to see whatever movie he was in.
After seeing it recently as a mature adult, the movie has some major problems.Elijah Wood plays Mark Evans, a child whose mother has just died.
Mark's Uncle Wallace (Daniel Hugh Kelly) and Aunt Susan (Wendy Crewson) seem normal, which is why you wonder how their son Henry (Macaulay Culkin), who is Mark's age, became so messed up.
All the while, Henry's parents, while they are good people and not abusive or inattentive, manage to be completely oblivious to their son being a reincarnation of Ted Bundy.It's not unbelievable that a kid can act like this.
"The Good Son" is about Mark (Elijah Wood), a young child who recently lost his mother to cancer.
With nobody willing to believe Mark (dismissing him as a troubled boy who is suffering the loss of his mother), he finds himself responsible to stop Henry from trying to take the lives of his family and reveal the true dark side of his manipulative sociopathic personality.An intriguing thriller in the vein of the 1956 horror film "The Bad Seed", "The Good Son" is a very smart and inventive horror/thriller.
The supporting cast consisted mainly of Wendy Crewson as Henry's mother (who is also very good) and Culkin's real life little sister, playing his little sister on screen.
The Good Son was the moment you really realize that Culkin couldn't act because Elijah Wood could.
Of course, in a movie like this, no one believes Mark that little Henry could be a bad kid, so Mark takes it upon himself to protect Henry's unsuspecting family (and especially Henry's mother) from their twisted little boy when they would not do so for themselves.
I saw this movie a lot when I was a kid because I was so in love with Elijah Wood at the time.
Unfortunately, that mistake is largely due to the fact that they cast Macaulay Culkin as the evil son in this rather tame thriller in the first place - meaning, had they cast anyone else as Henry, the film would have been much better.This is the story of a young boy, Mark (Elijah Wood), who just lost his mother to illness, and has to go live with his Uncle and his family out of necessity for a couple of weeks.
I think more people were shocked with the fact that Macaulay Culkin dropped the F-Bomb in this movie rather than what a creepy kid he was playing.
I always thought it was ironic that Elijah Wood's career took off after this movie, and Macaulay Culkin's practically died..
This was the darkest movie I've seen in my lifetime, I mean by darkest that the whole script of McCaulay Culkin playing role Henry were really scary and heartbeating the whole time.
Slickly-made but overwrought, brainless thriller has young Elijah Wood mourning the death of his mother, going to stay with relatives and falling victim to cousin Macaulay Culkin's twisted pranks.
After suffering first-hand through a (suspicious) death in the family, Culkin's parents don't even think twice about leaving the kids home alone, nor do they seem cognizant of their child's dark side (is he that good an actor?).
Not only is it stupid, it's disturbing seeing filmmakers having an eleven-year-old kill people.The film starts out with Elijah Wood going to live with his Aunt and Uncle after his mother dies, because his father has a business deal in Japan (or something like that).
So then Wood has to convince everyone that Culkin is a homicidal maniac with serious problems before the sister dies.I read a review of Roger Ebert's on this film, and it's exactly what stuck out at me when I originally watched the film: What kind of filmmakers have a small child in a role where he is killing people?
The excellent child actor, Elijah Wood, was thrown into this Culkin star-vehicle(with his sister and brother also having cameos) as the good kid that no-one believes and he's fine in the movie.
The title is kind of confusing because the movie is about a child(who is not a son), played by Wood, who's mother dies and he has to live with a cousin while he's away on a business trip.
I loved the film Elijah Wood is truly an amazing and very, talented actor and at such a young age, if you like movies that keep you on the edge of your seat "The Good Son" is the film for you!
The film starts out with Mark (Elijah Wood) has lost his mother, and is sent to stay with his cousin Henery (McCally Caliclukin) who seams to be a normal 10-12 year old boy but later as we see is truly disturbed.
It is about a boy named mark(Elijah Wood), and his cousin Henry(Macaulay Culkin), mark's mom dies, and he has to go to his aunt's and uncle's house, while his dad jack(David Morse)is on a important trip.
When I saw this movie I was surprised by Culkin's new role as a young boy who enjoys to kill including his sister, but now he's an x-child actor the one who deserves the most credits is Wood as Mark Evans who struggles hard to prevent his evil cousin from harming people just for fun, and everybody refuses to believe him because they think he misses his mother badly.
I am a huge fan of Macaulay Culkin and I think this evil character of Henry is his best yet!
If that's not frighten enough, think about the fact that every serial killer on earth was at one time a child, and films like The Good Son represent a story that could be happening right now.
Both families think it will be good for Mark to be around someone his own age, his cousin Henry (Macaulay Culkin), but what they didn't know is that Henry is pure evil and has killed before.
When you think Killer Kids, movies like The Omen come to mind, but this is different as Henry isn't possessed, he's just a psychopath.
I've seen Wood in dozen's of things since The Good Son and his eyes still creep me out, it's almost like he can see right through you, and that might have made him a better choice to play Henry.
The Good Son is so outstanding and out of this world when you watch it you really feel like your a character in this film too..
I thought the subtleties they used to progress the audiences awareness of Culkin's character without fully alienating Wood was very good and kept the viewers attention, however, that did slip a little further into the movie.
Like "The Bad Seed," this film concerns an evil child lacking a conscience but not a wide variety of ways to kill whatever living things cross his path.
By the time "The Good Son" came out, Macaulay Culkin's overexposed shocked appearance in posters for "Home Alone"(1990), was making a few people sick, and I wouldn't doubt for one second that he was tired of the typecasting as cute little kids.
The scene where Henry Evans(Culkin) confides in his cousin Mark (Elijah Wood) that his youth and innocent demeanor makes it easy to do anything is just one example of this message.
From their acting, the actors playing the parents seem to think they're in an antihistamine commercial, or maybe one for Campbell's soup.I don't mean to suggest I went into this movie expecting it to be good, but the problem is it really isn't entertainingly bad either.
(Cause it sure as hell isn't art.)What's really upsetting is that when the credits roll, with the theme music that suggests the promise of the opening moments, we realize that had the director scrapped everything after the first five minutes with Morse and Wood this could have been one of those great "little" movies, in this case about a child grappling and coming to terms with the death of his mother.
This movie has some of the best young stars including Henry (Macaulay Culkin) who plays the role of the horrible kid in this movie.
The Good Son when released in 1993 was a film starring it child actor Macaulay Culkin.
Macaulay Culkin's performance was not as good as Elijah's, but is was great to see them working together.
The plot involves 12-year-old Mark (Elijah Wood) by the way, Mark IS a very wholesome character)whos mom died of cancer, who goes to live with his long time no see cousins, aunt, and uncle in Maine.
Yes Henry(Macaulay Culkin)is the bad son that likes to do these terrible things and worth trying to kill his family.After Mark(Elijah Wood)lost his mother who died of cancer;Henry got jealous that when Mark crying about he misses his mom and his aunt comforts him and treats Mark like her own son and Henry didn't like that,so that's why he killed his baby brother by drowned him in the bathtub.He only did that if so he can have his mother to himself.Mark realize about Henry's evil smile behind him and tries to warned the family about Henry's behavior by threw his sister Connie(Quinn Culkin)in the thin ice at the skating pond,no one believes him at all.When Susan was looking for Richard's toy duck in the shed,she realize that Henry had kill his baby brother if so he can get his duck toy back,because it was his before it was Richard's.When Susan asked Henry that did he kill Richard,he says he did and begin push his mom from the cliff.When Henry tries to drop a rock on his mom,thank goodness that Mark came to the rescue his aunt and Susan drop Henry from the cliff.I can tell that this movie is similar to THE BAD SEED!
If you ask me, Mark (Elijah Wood) was really gutsy to stand up to that little devil, Henry (Macaulay Culkin).
Now, in conclusion, if you are a fan of Macaulay Culkin or Elijah Wood, you're in for a good time and lots of laughs, so see this movie today..
The movie was under appreciated, but if you look past the errors, this can definitely be a thrill.The story is about a boy named Henry (Caulkin) who's cousin (Wood) comes to live with him after his mother has passed away.
I think this was a pretty good thriller, the acting was excellent by both Elijah Wood and Macaulay Culkin.
The Good Son is a REALLY great thriller about Mark (Elijah Wood, and when his mother dies, Mark is sent to his cousin Henry's (Macauly Culkin) house.
Mark (Elijah Wood) has just lost his mum to cancer and is sent off to his cousin Henry (Macaulay Culkin) to help.
Macaulay did a reasonable job, especially at the beginning of the movie, but like many things in The Good Son, he lost his strength throughout.
If Kevin was like this, he would have killed his family and Harry and Marv...Ironically, the movie's title refers precisely to Culkin's character instead of Elijah Wood's character (who really is the good son).
I, for one, love the movie.**SPOILERS** Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood do awesome jobs portraying Henry and Mark Evans, respectively.
Both, Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Woods are wonderful in the roles, they play in this film.
At first Elijah (Mark) has fun until he finds out that his cousin Mac (Henry) is really an evil boy who likes to try to kill his family member.
Henry even finds ways to make Mark seem like the insane child.This movie was enjoyable to see, because I think the world was tired of seeing Macaulay Culkin as just the typical child actor, who plays pranks on people.
I think most people say they don't like it just because they hate Elijah Wood or Macaulay Culkin, and they are both EXCELLENT in this movie.
Elijah Wood does a great job being the kid who nobody believes and Culkin is amazing as a boy without a conscience.
Strangely enough though, the first time I saw the movie, I didn't even know that Elijah Wood played Mark, even though he is an actor that I really liked from seeing him in "The Lord Of The Rings" and stuff.