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The Good Son
1993 87 min United States of America R 16+
★6.0
Drama, Thriller, Horror
Director: Joseph Ruben
Trailers
Description
A young boy stays with his aunt and uncle, and befriends his cousin who's the same age. But his cousin begins showing increasing signs of psychotic behavior.
Budget:
$17M
US Gross:
$44.79M
Worldwide:
$60.61M
Starring
Macaulay Culkin
Actor
Elijah Wood
Actor
Wendy Crewson
Actor
Awards
Saturn Awards 1994
— Best Young Performer
MTV Movie & TV Awards 1994
— Best Villain
Saturn Awards 1994
— Best Horror Film
Key opinion
The Good Son is widely regarded as a gripping and tension-filled thriller anchored by Macaulay Culkin's chilling, against-type performance as a sociopathic child. While opinions on the script's psychological depth vary, the film is consistently praised for its ability to maintain dread without relying on conventional horror gore.
| Acting | Macaulay Culkin delivers a masterful, unsettling performance that successfully subverts his 'Home Alone' persona to embody pure, cold-blooded malice. | |
| Acting | Elijah Wood provides a grounded, effective counterbalance to Culkin, using his expressive eyes to convey the isolation of the sole witness to Henry's evil. | |
| Score | Elmer Bernstein's score expertly elevates the film's atmosphere, transitioning seamlessly from tranquil beauty to profound unease. | |
| Emotion | The film succeeds in building relentless psychological dread and high-stakes tension without relying on explicit gore or cheap slasher tropes. | |
| Ending | The climactic ending, forcing a mother to make an impossible choice between two children, is widely viewed as a powerful, non-banal resolution to the narrative conflict. | |
| Screenplay | While some viewers appreciate the simplicity of the story, others find the lack of explicit motivation or psychological background for Henry's cruelty to be a narrative weakness. |