Who's in It: Sam Rockwell, Vera Farmiga, Celia Weston, Dallas Roberts, Michael McKean, Jacob Kogan
The Basics: Is the supergenius child of a rich Manhattan family also a total sociopath with a quietly evil plan to destroy everyone in his path? Or is his family just breaking down around him? And how come all the pets keep turning up dead? I'm not telling. In fact, I refuse to give away anything about this really excellently disturbing bit of Bad Seed revisionism.
What's the Deal? This is a flawed thriller in the way of most thrillers. Those flaws usually involve possible tension-and-plot-resolving conversations between characters that simply don't happen. And that kind of not-happens happens here once or twice. But you know what? I didn't care. Because the result is so much dark and doomed fun I forgave its couple leaps of logic. And ultimately, it made me glad I decided never to become a parent.
Who's Great: Pretty much everyone, but especially newcomer Kogan as the poker-faced "good son" and near-newcomer Farmiga (The Departed and an incredible indie film called Down to the Bone) as the losing-her-marbles mom who's suffering from the worst post-partum psychotic break ever.
Who Made It: George Ratliff, who also made a very cool and almost equally disturbing documentary about conservative Evangelical Christian Halloween sideshows called Hell House. He's still concerned with that subject because the grandmother character here is a meddling born-again Christian. Meanwhile, taken as a double feature, they're both sort of about the pitfalls of raising children, and this one, in particular, could be read as a critique of the kinds of amoral offspring (two stars of The Simple Life and their circle of friends come to mind) that result from backgrounds of extreme privilege.
Best Line: OK, I guess this sort of counts as a spoiler, but it was too good not to share: "Don't beat up your kid in public on a weekend."