Scott Jacoby is up to no good in cult classic BAD RONALD, screening July 5 at 92YTribeca
BAD RONALD (Buzz Kulik, 1974)
92YTribeca
200 Hudson St. at Canal St.
Tuesday, July 5, $12, 8:00
212-415-5500
www.92y.org
There are certain movies that are impossible to get out of your head, lingering there for years, rooting through your brain, imbedding itself in your subconscious, affecting every step you take. Buzz Kulik’s 1974 cult classic, Bad Ronald, is just such a film. For those who have seen it, Bad Ronald leaves an indelible memory imprinted on their very being. We know, because we have never been the same since first seeing it oh those many years ago. Made during the tail end of the Nixon era as a new kind of mass paranoia ran rampant across the country, Bad Ronald captured the zeitgeist of the post-Woodstock generation, with Ronald Wilby (the beautifully fro’d Scott Jacoby) the ultimate awkward latch-key kid, living behind a wall after committing a terrible act. In many ways Ronald, a childlike Rupert Pupkin, can be considered a guru to those minions currently residing in their parents’ basement, creating art and music on their laptops. In that room, Ronald immerses himself in the fantasy world of Atranta, a land of princesses and demons, with danger lurking around every corner, especially when the Woods (father Dabney Coleman, mother Pippa Scott, and three daughters) move into Ronald’s house after the death of his mother (Kim Hunter).
One of the strangest television movies ever made, Bad Ronald is getting a rare public screening tonight at 92YTribeca, where it is being presented by indie filmmaker Michael Tully. Tully cites the crazy tale as a major influence on his most recent feature, Septien, which opens at the IFC Center tomorrow. “Bad Ronald isn’t a ‘horror’ film, per se. Unless you’re a five-year-old watching television in the mid-1970s, that is,” Tully writes on the 92Y Tribeca event page. “That’s how I first encountered it, and I’m still haunted by the experience. Buzz Kulik’s ABC Movie of the Week tells the bizarre tale of high school outcast Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby, not just looking but sounding like Matthew Modine), who accidentally kills a girl. His overprotective mother proceeds to build a secret room in their house in order to hide him from the world. That setup works just fine, until Mom dies unexpectedly and a new family moves in. . . . Though they are very different, one of our primary goals in making Septien was to capture that same ‘five-year-old-discovering-a-movie-that-he-probably-shouldn’t-be-watching’ spirit that I felt when I stumbled upon this strangely alluring gem.” Bad Ronald is more than just a movie, more than just a 1970s oddity; it is nothing less than a life-changing experience.
(For our twi-ny talk with Tully, click here.)