The Good Son

This is one of those low budget movies that knows how to shock and suspend in memorable ways. Elijah Wood (Mark) is a sweet boy who has just lost his mom and is staying for two weeks with his aunt, uncle, and their two kids--and one of those kids is Macaulay Culkin (Henry), while his dad goes away on business.

Writing Quality/Character Development: Woah. There's so much that happens in the span of less than two weeks. The script is well developed, especially as the story takes place almost entirely in one location focusing primarily on two pre-teen boys. You've seen Macaulay Culkin delight in "Home Alone", but you've never seen him like this! Evil. A little bit like Michael Meyers--"Because he can". The character development is excellent here. With each scene, Henry finds yet another opportunity to destroy someone or something; it only gets worse as each day passes, much to the shock of innocent Mark. Unfortunately, Mark's aunt and uncle don't believe him, and neither does his counselor, who actually declares she doesn't believe evil exists. As Henry grows more daring in his cruel ploys, Mark finds himself having to do everything he can to protect his relative before they're next in line as targets. Henry and Mark are excellent contrasts to each other, symbolic of evil and good, respectively.

Values: The ideas of protecting a family unit, of exposing evil, and of shining light on the truth.

Content (sex, language, & violence): No sex, one use of F***, some light violence and some terrible violence that is mostly shown off-screen.

Scare factor/suspense: The scariest part of this movie is how Henry projects himself (to Mark) as a calloused indifferent child, a sociopath. Many moments of suspense where we side with Mark as he dreads what next "trick" his cousin has planned.

Bonus: There is no CGI, so what you see is actually what happens (minus the end scene). That we are given "natural" special effects makes this movie more edgy and realistic, so that the psychological factor proves more compelling. Plus, we get a HEA.

#TheGoodSon #ElijahWood #MacaulayCulkin