I think this story is ripe for a remake. There are all kinds of ways that a smart kid could more plausibly pull the wool over the eyes of authorities, and it would be refreshing given how much today's kids are overprotected.
"Well here, they can have a piece of my birthday cake... now F off !" 😭😭😭😫. One of my ALLLLL time fave, creepy 70' flicks !!!! ❤️❤️❤️👍 Thanks for covering this.
In the book, the first two deaths are unambiguous murders. Most of the book is exactly like the movie but when she tells Mario about her mother, she killed her mother all by herself. Her father had no plans for her mother beyond Rynn hiding from her. Rynn states she looked up cyanide, obtained some and deliberately put it in her mother’s tea to kill her. With Mrs. Hallet, upon hearing her scream upon seeing her mother’s corpse, Rynn shuts the cellar door. She can hear Mrs. Hallet pounding and she contemplates just letting her die of exposure or starvation then hooks a hose to the stoves gas line and puts it in a crack in the cellar door to kill her off more quickly. So … there’s that. Rynn’s not necessarily less sympathetic though … that’s kinda the point. She’s kinda like Dexter though predating him by 30 years.
I had heard of this movie, referenced in a Twin Peaks podcast. Saw it was on Prime, so I watched it. Had a feeling it was darker than the title implied. Been watching/rewatching a lot of 70s movies lately. Three Days of the Condor, Over the Edge, The Conversation, and Phantasm. It was quite a decade for dark films.
Thanks for finally getting to this wonderful movie, Jenny! This has always been one of my favorites and one of the first movies I ever recorded on TV with a new wonderful device called a VCR. LOL Jodi Foster and Martin Sheen's performances are a tour de force, giving just the perfect amount of character wo over playing their roles.
Thanks so much for this. I am the same age as Jodi Foster and saw this movie when it came out in ‘76. I was very effected by this film at the time and having just rewatched it, I was able to regenerate the same feelings that I had originally, and from this perspective now, provided me with a new understanding of how I am now as a 60 year old.
I had read in an interview with Jodie Foster, years later... that she actually wanted to do the nude scene herself, but obviously she was too young, and CPS would have been all over that! She said that's why she was upset, also for the fact that her sister did it. The poison Rynn uses, she states she "did not know until later what was in it." That was, after poisoning her mother. She looked it up at the library, potassium cyanide. This is an EXCELLENT Film! I've watched it multiple times and have studied the characters.
Awww, thank you so much! Yes, I'm definitely going to be doing more solo movie reviews starting in April, because there's just so many movies I wanna talk about! :-)
Awesome walkthrough of the film. It's a great one! I absolutely love Martin Sheen's character: a complete creep, but captivating and cunning. At the end I get the feeling, especially through his voice, when he's complimenting the little girl's hair and choking from the cyanide, that he realizes she has played him; that he's been poisoned; but he "loves" her beauty. It's twisted, but that's how it comes off. Brilliant ending.
Some people didn’t like this movie & said it was boring. But I loved it back then & now. I always wondered what she’d do when the 3 years rent ran out. Guess she’d get a job at 16yrs old.
That's a point that leads me to suspect her father maybe didn't actually commit suicide over being terminally ill which we only have her word about. Maybe her mother wasn't the only parent she murdered. If her father actually swam out to sea and drowned himself his body would have probably eventually ended up washing ashore unless he was wearing cement overshoes like the Mafia uses so it doesn't seem to be a very well planned suicide for somebody who just wanted to disappear without letting his ex-wife...who may not have actually been as abusive as claimed...get custody of her after he died.
I’m pretty sure that Mrs. Halley is just the real estate agent, as Mario rides his bike past a sign that says “Hallet’s Real Estate” if I’m not mistaken. And she mentions that she and the owner jar preserves every year when getting the glass jars.
She is a survivor. Her dad died of cancer and her mom was a tramp that would have drained the bank account and disappeared again. She knew she had to delete the parasite. And she did. She also removed the bigot mother of the kid toucher. Then she had to delete the kid toucher or be his victim. She is a strong female character that gives us a strong boost to not be victimized. I'm proud of her.
It's weird seeing Jenny without Tom but real show Jenny. I also saw this movie when I was a kid, although I saw the the one edited for TV. Jodie Foster was a very talented actress at such a young age. I'm also a big fan of Foxes.
Yeah, I can totally understand that. It's hard for me to watch ANYTHING with animal abuse in it (even if it's fake). It's weird, because I'm not really bothered by violence against humans in movies, but damn, leave the kitties and puppies and hamsters out of it! In this movie, though, it really does make you hate Martin Sheen's character with the heat of a thousand suns, and I for one got immense satisfaction when Jodie Foster poisoned his creepy ass at the end and then just sat there emotionlessly watching him die.
@@13OClockPodcast Supposedly Martin Sheen almost refused to do the scene.......even though Gordon the hamster had a taxedermy stunt double, he was very upset. He was very protective over Jodie in this film.
You missed, what I believe is, the most telling about Rynn. It’s the very end of the film. When she is watching Frank die she does not blink once. The scene continues as the credits roll with her face in closeup and without blinking once as a live shot (surely, actually on a loop)… Not to mention flames dancing behind her head. What this means? Who knows, however, a normal human would have blinked numerous times.
Since you referenced Ian McEwańs The Cement Garden you must check out the creepy 1967 film Our Mother’s House ( Pamela Franklin alert). It HAD to have influenced McEwans book.
Ooh, thanks for the rec! I never heard of that one and I LOVE Pamela Franklin. She was so awesome in Legend of Hell House (she was in The Food of the Gods too, but hey, girl needed a paycheck so I'll cut her some slack haha).
@@13OClockPodcast Forgot to mention the most important detail - it was directed by Jack Clayton who directed The Innocents. Which I know you reviewed a while ago and is one of my all-time favorite films. I'd forgotten about Food of the Gods (with good reason😄) and that Franklin was in it! My sister, nieces and I were big fans of hers (and Jodie Foster) growing up. And many thanks for reminding me of this JF film. I'm old AF so saw it at the movies when it was new with my nieces in tow!! They would've been around her age. Holy shit - incredibly inappropriate for kids to watch.
I had completely forgotten about this movie. I saw this movie when I was a kid and was totally creeped out about it. I don't think I've seen it since I was a kid. I just remember the floorboards being significant. Was the entrance to the basement through the floor? Maybe I'll check it out again. Didn't Jodie Foster also do one of the early Lolita movies, speaking of large age differences? Maybe I'm mis-remembering that. But it seems to me that she did.
Yeah, the entrance to the cellar was a big hinged door in the wooden floor beneath a rug. I also saw this movie a lot when I was younger, but hadn't seen it for at least 20 years. I forgot how good it was. And Jodie Foster never played Lolita as far as I know, but she did play a teenage prostitute in Taxi Driver the same year that this movie came out.
@@13OClockPodcast I actually IMDBed it. It was not her in Lolita. I only brought it up because I remember watching the movie as a kid way before I read the book in high school and college and thinking it was really weird in kind of the same way.
@@13OClockPodcast I'm also going to add a more comical point in that I grew up in a conservative Christian household (agnostic at best now, as I like to disclose) and remember my parents being very strict about what I watched. But it seems like I got away with watching a lot of stuff of which they wouldn't approve. I think it's because, due to my night terrors and sleep paralysis as a kid, I used to sneak downstairs and watch television in the middle of the night and, as counterintuitive as it sounds, horror movies actually helped me get back to sleep after an episode. To this day, it's the same way for me. LOL!
Just watched this for the first time and was interested right from the first scene. Jodie does an amazing performance! Very unrealistic at times but still amazing.
I love this movie.❤ great stars!! I am thr same age as her. ( Jodie). Im thinking she unalived her dad too?!! Not sure, i only thought this when i was older.
@@13OClockPodcast I just remembered where I first saw Jodie Foster, it was the old TV show "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" with Bill Bixby, pre-Hulk. She was also in some Disney shows/movies doing bit parts ... memories of my childhood! :-)
Man, I really need to reread that book, because it made a massive impression on me as a kid for some reason. Checking the googles, I see that there was indeed a 1993 British film made of it (with the same title) starring Charlotte Gainsbourg. It even won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival the year it came out. I'm gonna have to see it!
Jodie Foster deserved an academy award. I fell in love with her. And any hetero male is lying or dead if he didn't. Smart, beautiful, totally alone, and at 13 forbidden. I'd sell my deeply discounted soul to be Mario. In the sequel I rescue her after the last scene, and we escape to Costa Rica, and live happily ever after. Cool review but a total spoiler. Subscribed
Fantastic review of one of my favorite movies of my childhood, with that 70's Halloween vibe that can never be replicated (no matter how hard they continue to try). I was so fascinated with Jodie in this role, and my older sister was also, to the extent that she named her own first born child Wren after her. I thought I'd mention that Jodie finally did talk about this film in an interview posted about a year after you put this up. I haven't watched it yet- I just found it today. Looks like a bit of a fluff interview but you might like it. Anyway very perceptive review.
I watched the movie and read the book. In the book Rynn was more calculating. I found myself rooting for Jodie Foster. I agree her acting was incredible.
One of the most underrated classics, it's almost impossible to believe that Jodie is only 12 in this
I think this story is ripe for a remake. There are all kinds of ways that a smart kid could more plausibly pull the wool over the eyes of authorities, and it would be refreshing given how much today's kids are overprotected.
"Well here, they can have a piece of my birthday cake... now F off !" 😭😭😭😫. One of my ALLLLL time fave, creepy 70' flicks !!!! ❤️❤️❤️👍 Thanks for covering this.
In the book, the first two deaths are unambiguous murders. Most of the book is exactly like the movie but when she tells Mario about her mother, she killed her mother all by herself. Her father had no plans for her mother beyond Rynn hiding from her. Rynn states she looked up cyanide, obtained some and deliberately put it in her mother’s tea to kill her. With Mrs. Hallet, upon hearing her scream upon seeing her mother’s corpse, Rynn shuts the cellar door. She can hear Mrs. Hallet pounding and she contemplates just letting her die of exposure or starvation then hooks a hose to the stoves gas line and puts it in a crack in the cellar door to kill her off more quickly. So … there’s that. Rynn’s not necessarily less sympathetic though … that’s kinda the point. She’s kinda like Dexter though predating him by 30 years.
I think she's also similar to Rhoda in "The Bad Seed". Same body count. Daddy's girl.
I had heard of this movie, referenced in a Twin Peaks podcast. Saw it was on Prime, so I watched it. Had a feeling it was darker than the title implied.
Been watching/rewatching a lot of 70s movies lately. Three Days of the Condor, Over the Edge, The Conversation, and Phantasm. It was quite a decade for dark films.
'Bad Ronald' is a similar beginner's horror film.
I love Bad Ronald!
Love this film. It's a pretty good little thriller. Shame it's pretty much forgotten these days. Glad you covered this.
I know, I've always loved this movie and I feel like hardly anyone ever mentions it.
Thanks for finally getting to this wonderful movie, Jenny! This has always been one of my favorites and one of the first movies I ever recorded on TV with a new wonderful device called a VCR. LOL
Jodi Foster and Martin Sheen's performances are a tour de force, giving just the perfect amount of character wo over playing their roles.
I enjoyed this review so much, you cracked me up. Was like listening to a friend tell you about a jacked up movie. ❤😂
The movie has an Alfred Hitchcock feel to it.
Definitely. I mean somebody living alone in a creepy house with the body of her dead mother she murdered pretty much screams Norman Bates.
Thanks so much for this. I am the same age as Jodi Foster and saw this movie when it came out in ‘76. I was very effected by this film at the time and having just rewatched it, I was able to regenerate the same feelings that I had originally, and from this perspective now, provided me with a new understanding of how I am now as a 60 year old.
I was walking Marginal Way in Maine on a chilly March day and found myself on the exact spot where Rynn and Mario tossed the keys.
I had read in an interview with Jodie Foster, years later...
that she actually wanted to do the nude scene herself, but obviously she was too young, and CPS would have been all over that! She said that's why she was upset, also for the fact that her sister did it.
The poison Rynn uses, she states she "did not know until later what was in it." That was, after poisoning her mother.
She looked it up at the library, potassium cyanide.
This is an EXCELLENT Film!
I've watched it multiple times and have studied the characters.
Amazing show! You’re great solo!
OMG SHE IS!!! I really hope she will do another format like the one for the books, she rules the tube
Awww, thank you so much! Yes, I'm definitely going to be doing more solo movie reviews starting in April, because there's just so many movies I wanna talk about! :-)
Awesome walkthrough of the film. It's a great one! I absolutely love Martin Sheen's character: a complete creep, but captivating and cunning. At the end I get the feeling, especially through his voice, when he's complimenting the little girl's hair and choking from the cyanide, that he realizes she has played him; that he's been poisoned; but he "loves" her beauty. It's twisted, but that's how it comes off. Brilliant ending.
Good film, almost theatre like with Foster's quick wit. Very creepy film.
This movie made such an impression on me I talked about it in my college application essay.
The VHS version I used to rent didn't have the nude scene in it. I never knew it was real until I bought it on blue ray. I was like wtf?!. Great movie
Some people didn’t like this movie & said it was boring.
But I loved it back then & now.
I always wondered what she’d do when the 3 years rent ran out. Guess she’d get a job at 16yrs old.
That's a point that leads me to suspect her father maybe didn't actually commit suicide over being terminally ill which we only have her word about. Maybe her mother wasn't the only parent she murdered. If her father actually swam out to sea and drowned himself his body would have probably eventually ended up washing ashore unless he was wearing cement overshoes like the Mafia uses so it doesn't seem to be a very well planned suicide for somebody who just wanted to disappear without letting his ex-wife...who may not have actually been as abusive as claimed...get custody of her after he died.
I love this movie. No one ever heard of it. It was a great movie.
I’m pretty sure that Mrs. Halley is just the real estate agent, as Mario rides his bike past a sign that says “Hallet’s Real Estate” if I’m not mistaken. And she mentions that she and the owner jar preserves every year when getting the glass jars.
She is a survivor. Her dad died of cancer and her mom was a tramp that would have drained the bank account and disappeared again. She knew she had to delete the parasite. And she did. She also removed the bigot mother of the kid toucher. Then she had to delete the kid toucher or be his victim. She is a strong female character that gives us a strong boost to not be victimized. I'm proud of her.
It's weird seeing Jenny without Tom but real show Jenny. I also saw this movie when I was a kid, although I saw the the one edited for TV. Jodie Foster was a very talented actress at such a young age. I'm also a big fan of Foxes.
Thanks. Well done video on this movie. P.S. I've always been in love with Mario 😊
yes ! this is one of my favorites! i used to see it on tv.....late night movies ! thank you for your review:)
I've been looking forward to your discussion of this movie!
I couldn't watch the movie because of the animal abuse I even cry at the commercials where they show the dogs in the shelters
Yeah, I can totally understand that. It's hard for me to watch ANYTHING with animal abuse in it (even if it's fake). It's weird, because I'm not really bothered by violence against humans in movies, but damn, leave the kitties and puppies and hamsters out of it! In this movie, though, it really does make you hate Martin Sheen's character with the heat of a thousand suns, and I for one got immense satisfaction when Jodie Foster poisoned his creepy ass at the end and then just sat there emotionlessly watching him die.
@@13OClockPodcast Supposedly Martin Sheen almost refused to do the scene.......even though Gordon the hamster had a taxedermy stunt double, he was very upset. He was very protective over Jodie in this film.
Jodie is brilliant. Must see movie!
You missed, what I believe is, the most telling about Rynn. It’s the very end of the film. When she is watching Frank die she does not blink once. The scene continues as the credits roll with her face in closeup and without blinking once as a live shot (surely, actually on a loop)… Not to mention flames dancing behind her head.
What this means? Who knows, however, a normal human would have blinked numerous times.
Since you referenced Ian McEwańs The Cement Garden you must check out the creepy 1967 film Our Mother’s House ( Pamela Franklin alert). It HAD to have influenced McEwans book.
Ooh, thanks for the rec! I never heard of that one and I LOVE Pamela Franklin. She was so awesome in Legend of Hell House (she was in The Food of the Gods too, but hey, girl needed a paycheck so I'll cut her some slack haha).
@@13OClockPodcast Forgot to mention the most important detail - it was directed by Jack Clayton who directed The Innocents. Which I know you reviewed a while ago and is one of my all-time favorite films. I'd forgotten about Food of the Gods (with good reason😄) and that Franklin was in it! My sister, nieces and I were big fans of hers (and Jodie Foster) growing up. And many thanks for reminding me of this JF film. I'm old AF so saw it at the movies when it was new with my nieces in tow!! They would've been around her age. Holy shit - incredibly inappropriate for kids to watch.
I had completely forgotten about this movie. I saw this movie when I was a kid and was totally creeped out about it. I don't think I've seen it since I was a kid. I just remember the floorboards being significant. Was the entrance to the basement through the floor? Maybe I'll check it out again. Didn't Jodie Foster also do one of the early Lolita movies, speaking of large age differences? Maybe I'm mis-remembering that. But it seems to me that she did.
Yeah, the entrance to the cellar was a big hinged door in the wooden floor beneath a rug. I also saw this movie a lot when I was younger, but hadn't seen it for at least 20 years. I forgot how good it was. And Jodie Foster never played Lolita as far as I know, but she did play a teenage prostitute in Taxi Driver the same year that this movie came out.
@@13OClockPodcast I actually IMDBed it. It was not her in Lolita. I only brought it up because I remember watching the movie as a kid way before I read the book in high school and college and thinking it was really weird in kind of the same way.
@@13OClockPodcast I'm also going to add a more comical point in that I grew up in a conservative Christian household (agnostic at best now, as I like to disclose) and remember my parents being very strict about what I watched. But it seems like I got away with watching a lot of stuff of which they wouldn't approve. I think it's because, due to my night terrors and sleep paralysis as a kid, I used to sneak downstairs and watch television in the middle of the night and, as counterintuitive as it sounds, horror movies actually helped me get back to sleep after an episode. To this day, it's the same way for me. LOL!
The rubber mask in this movie is better done than the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movies
I think it was one of those movies I saw on late night TV. Martin Sheen with Jodie Foster.
Just watched this for the first time and was interested right from the first scene. Jodie does an amazing performance! Very unrealistic at times but still amazing.
I saw it for the first time on you tube I thought it was pretty good
I love this movie.❤ great stars!! I am thr same age as her. ( Jodie). Im thinking she unalived her dad too?!! Not sure, i only thought this when i was older.
I loved it and no longer eat almond cookies! Shit, I liked her in Foxes!
Man, I need to revisit Foxes; that was a great movie too. I haven't seen it in probably 20 years.
@@13OClockPodcast I just remembered where I first saw Jodie Foster, it was the old TV show "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" with Bill Bixby, pre-Hulk. She was also in some Disney shows/movies doing bit parts ... memories of my childhood! :-)
Wasn’t “The Cement Garden” also turned into a movie,but one with a different title?
Man, I really need to reread that book, because it made a massive impression on me as a kid for some reason. Checking the googles, I see that there was indeed a 1993 British film made of it (with the same title) starring Charlotte Gainsbourg. It even won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival the year it came out. I'm gonna have to see it!
Jodie Foster deserved an academy award. I fell in love with her. And any hetero male is lying or dead if he didn't. Smart, beautiful, totally alone, and at 13 forbidden. I'd sell my deeply discounted soul to be Mario. In the sequel I rescue her after the last scene, and we escape to Costa Rica, and live happily ever after.
Cool review but a total spoiler.
Subscribed
Great job. You did mentioned The Other, 1972. Where can I find your comments on this movie? Thanks
Thanks! Our review of The Other is right here: ua-cam.com/video/ZTMXWdsR8SE/v-deo.html
Sick perverse movie.
SELF RIGHTOUS FOOL !
Fantastic review of one of my favorite movies of my childhood, with that 70's Halloween vibe that can never be replicated (no matter how hard they continue to try). I was so fascinated with Jodie in this role, and my older sister was also, to the extent that she named her own first born child Wren after her. I thought I'd mention that Jodie finally did talk about this film in an interview posted about a year after you put this up. I haven't watched it yet- I just found it today. Looks like a bit of a fluff interview but you might like it. Anyway very perceptive review.
Martin Sheen was SPOT ON with the creepyness of this role!!
I watched the movie and read the book. In the book Rynn was more calculating. I found myself rooting for Jodie Foster. I agree her acting was incredible.