Terror is found in the unlikeliest of forms in this Pulitzer-nominated thriller. Colonel and Christine Penmark live in a small Southern town with their daughter, Rhoda. On the surface, little Rhoda Penmark is sweet, charming, full of old-fashioned graces, loved by her parents and admired by all her elders. But Rhoda’s mother has an uneasy feeling about her.

 

When one of Rhoda’s schoolmates is mysteriously drowned at a picnic, Mrs. Penmark is alarmed, since the boy who was drowned was the one who had won the penmanship medal that Rhoda felt she deserved. Adapted from the novel by William March, The Bad Seed is a dark descent into the horrors even the sweetest faces can provoke.