‘The Good Son’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

The Rewatchables

The Ringer hosts revisit 'The Good Son' (1993), celebrating it as a cult classic with dark humor and intense family tension. They explore its legacy, casting, and the film’s absurd yet well-crafted chaos.

Key takeaways

• The film thrives on exaggerated, almost comedic evil in a family-friendly package.
• Macaulay Culkin’s performance as the manipulative Henry is widely praised.
• The movie’s chaotic logic and practical stunts still impress despite dated effects.

Transcript preview

The rewatchables is brought to by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find the big picture with Sean Fennese. That's right. Newletter writer. Yeah, yeah, projections. Projections. Good, you know, we're in like week seven and I'm like all right, so you just every week we do this cranking out 2,000 words, you know, you did it for what 20 years. It's work. Get into the habit. Yeah. It's got to keep those fingers moving. I all I do is pot I don't write anymore you know I'm following in his footsteps my fingers are broken okay yeah the difference is you'll go on all the pods yeah it's right they use me up you're like you're like Dominic Dunn in the 90s taking dinner invites during the OJ trial from Helmut. No, happy to be here. Thanks for having me. This is a nice follow-up for 2001 I think. The Good Sun is next. It's the rewatchables presented by Fandul predicts. You can predict the summer soccer showcase with Fandul predicts from the opening game to the final whistle stay locked in. Sign up for your $25 bonus on Fandul predicts. Go to Fandul predicts. Go to Fandul.com. Commission merchant 18 plus restrictions supply see terms at Fandel.com slash predicts slash bonus dash offer dash terms. top three ever and then we could decide who's in the fourth spot on kids from Mount Rushmore. I made a top ten list just so you know. I have oh you did I did. I did. Did you really? I did. Well why don't you do yours and I'll give you I'll give you mine. Well the OGs, Damian. It's all for you Damien! Yeah. Yeah. Michael Myers. Uh-huh. Oh yeah that's funny I didn't list him. Sure. Sure. Sure. What? No this is why you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're I watched him for 15 years not staring at the wall staring through the wall I would argue in his childhood Michael was relatively dormant though right like he had the one bad night well he killed his sister he had one bad night he had one six stabbing so I have him and I have King Joffrey as my third one oh great call I didn't yeah I did there's something wrong with the kid movies which is not quite the same as just evil kid but it's it's in the they're related it's in the zone so what else do you have number 10 there's two village of the damn movies 60 and then carpenter remade it in 95 number nine recent movie late night with the devil yeah where a young girl gets possessed on live television so you count possessions so you count possessions I am counting possessions okay because the kids do so like bright burn what if Superman was evil basically the good son is number seven number six is the bad seed huge inspiration for the good son I have the omen at five I have we need to talk about Kevin at four Kevin over Damien Kevin over Damien. Number three orphan which is that one as well absolute banger number two the shining because Danny at first we're like is Danny gonna be the problem here now there is kind of something wrong with Danny I don't think I don't think I ever really thought that I like what you're talking. And then number one of course is Reagan and the exorcist. I had her as well. Two you left out, Children in the Corn, Isaac. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He wants you to, Malachai. Can we do that please one day? Can we do children in the court? Have you re-watched it though? It's really bad. It's not that good. But I just want to talk. Even Tubi's like, we're not sure. It has a couple of good scenes, but it's pretty rough. And then the other one I had. missed. I was 92 the year I graduated college. No recollection of this coming out. I don't think it was really released in the theaters that much and then became a cult classic after. It's called Mikey. I've never seen this. I was reading about it. Brian Bonsal, who was the little kid that got added at the end of family ties when they made the classic 80s sitcom mistake of we need to mix things up on the show. Oh, the parents are pregnant again. Mikey's insane. It's on Amazon. Josie Bissette from Melrose Place and the white guy from Miami Vice, John Deal, one of the backup cops. Yeah, they're both in it. But Mikey, he's like literally a serial killer. So I said like a nine year old. I read that this was one of three movies that were all banned around the same time including the good son in England because there was some copycat stuff going on. And they were worried about that with this with the good son here too, where they were just like if people see Kulk and break it bad this, this, this, this is this is going to, this is going to be terrible. This is going to be terrible. This is going to be terrible. appetizer for the good son. It's like the more ridiculous to be crazy version of it. What are your evil kid takes? I mean I think Kevin is actually pretty high up there for me. It's a very disturbing movie. That's like a very disturbing one. That's like a almost more realistic. You know, I mean. That's like a you need a shower after that movie. Yeah. Yeah. Also. Also the kid who played Kevin as her Miller. It turned out to be fucking kuku for cocoa pukpus. You could throw just from recently like you could make you could make you could make an argument about the a character from the drama. That's funny. That's a great one. And you could make the argument that Alana Himes character is even worse. Yeah, we don't see her childhood. Yeah, well, we hear about her childhood. But she sounds almost more sociopathic about it in some ways. So you're counting orphan. Well, it does turn out it's a 35-year-old. I had a. Spoill. It's a massive, 2009's orphan. Come on. 17 years old. That's one of the great twist though in recent movie history. massive hit with the Simmons family. As you know, the Simmons family watches all of these and the Good Sun is the perfect family movie because it's it's pushing it but not really. It's scary but not totally. It's creepy but it has an okay and it's like 9% better than a TV movie of the week and it's that 9% where it flies, you know? So what do you want from a medieval kid movie CR? Do you like the satanic possession angle or do you like the? No, I like the... like the instinct and this is this movie dramatizes it really well as the instinct is like I would give up my life for my kid and the only thing that matters is my kid there's nothing that my kid could do that wouldn't make me love it and this movie asks you but what if what if that wasn't the case or what if you were pushed to such a far extreme you had to make a choice? How old's your daughter now? She'll be five in July this is a fun conversation. Now it's not going where you're going to go. So you're going to be around so you're going to parents from this point on. There's going to be the one kid where you're like, huh. Yeah. And if his name is Damien or Kevin, you're already going to be prejudiced against him. There will be the jokes. Yeah. Believe me, I made them back in the day. I was at a birthday party with Alice in January and there was a bounce house at the birthday party. I'll just say that there was one kid who was one kid who was pushing the limits of sadism in the balance house, I'll say. delighting in. that kid's named Payman. Yeah. Payman, another bad kid. Pazuzu Johnson, yeah. Payman's a good one. Yeah, Payman's definitely in there. Yeah, because, well there's two different versions for the parent, right? One is it's your kid and you're constantly trying to convince yourself that the kid's fine, which is what's so great about that Kevin movie, movie that I would not buy on 4K Blu-ray because I don't ever want to see it. I definitely own it. I wouldn't want to be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what are we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we do we're Like, yeah, we gotta watch that both narrow scene. So you have that, but then you have the other version is the, someone else has that kid, do we want our kid to interact with that kid? Right. Which is a whole other. And this movie kind of introduces that, and it's in the plot structure, where it's sort of like, what if a normal kid, or at least what we think is a normal kid, is introduced into a world where there's something wrong with the other kids. So like we have, it's not through the eyes of the parents, it's through the eyes of another child, common thing in these kinds of movies usually through the eyes of the parents so I think that's part of what is effective about this movie yeah all the adults are pretty much viewed through the POV of the kids yeah that's like different than say how we did with Heather Rocks the cradle where it kind of jumps around a lot you you're kind of given insight into like what's going on here or there before the characters know it this is all like I have a lot I have a lot of like picking knits about Uncle Wallace you know and some stuff like that is what the Mark and Henry character sees. Evil Henry, played by Macaulay Culkin, in a phenomenal performance. The manipulative stuff is great. Everything, all the shit he's doing, he's like, hey mom, Mark wants to, Mark wants stay in Richard's room. He's like, no, I don't. He's just constantly pushing buttons and figuring out where the limits are. And just trying to quiet. torture people but then he's also a fucking maniac. He's the Tiger Woods of Gaslighting. Like it would have been an incredible run for him. It ended really soon, it ended early. Yes. You want to make some sort of a classic, like in the NBA? But what would have been his 99 US Open? You know, like what could he even done at college or in the professional works? I had that written down how I wish he hadn't died and I wanted more stuff with him for the sequel? Like, he's running a gambling ring in the seventh grade. just where else it could have gone. I just felt that small potatoes for him. I mean he really he was reaching for the stars right out of the shoot. He was like what I will do is I'll murder my brother. Like he was he's he was building weapons. I mean it wasn't going to end well for for Henry no matter what but yeah. Yeah he had a shed with Mr Highway that he built his fake dummy dummy that he could throw at a highway. This movie also really taps into something that is, which is when we were growing up your parents were just like, like what did you do with all of this free time when no one was looking after you which is like not the experience I'm having as a parent I'm pretty aware where my daughter is at all times yeah but when we were kids sure you could just build Mr highway man in a shed might end at the latchkey parenting generation seriously like we need to make sure it's at the tail end we don't have a good son yeah this is right the 90s were when this started to flip around and people Yeah, he has the whole country for old men's gun, yeah. Called it. I was like, want to see the stuff at my shed? He has a tree house that it's like 50-50 you're gonna fall to your death that you're climbing. A death trap. Yeah. He's like, no, no, go this way, the scary way. They were given free rain to go play on cliff sides in the winter in New England where like they could just get blown. And on the highway, and on train tracks. Like, the number of places where they go and just like, where they go is dangerous yeah it's almost like the only thing they're missing is like the subway with the third rail where he would get electrocuted right it's kind of like a final destination movie yeah you know where they keep putting them they keep putting the characters and scenarios where like something terrible is about to happen here did you know anything about this movie before you watched it zero you've I assumed kulkin was the good son going to it I assumed could be portrayed as sinister so I was surprised they went the other way but they were both perfect for it. He does a good job freaking out. You love this movie I can already see it in your eyes. Ridiculous movie. It had a oh I had one more thing about the from hell all-stars for constructed in the perfect family sleeping with the enemy guy as the dad. Patrick Bergenya. I think he's been mentioned in every from hell month. Joseph Rubin who also did our guy. We're going to talk about him. I think the mom can't be a From Hell. I think you need one person in the From Hell movie who's not From Hell. The mom who's constantly overlooking the signs that something bad's happening. Oh yeah, okay. That's like a Julia Roberts type of actress, whatever. Macaulay, Colch and Alicia Silverstone is the two kids. I think she's the older sister. D'Mournes, D'Mournay is the nanny. Of course. Of course. next door. Who's that with Tim Robbins and whoever his wife was in Arlington Road. They're across street. Okay. Just do doing some FBI terrorists stuff. This is like your all-star team up of all the from hell badies? They're all there but they're... Is Arlington Road in from Hell Month? No but I do like that movie. It is a good one. Nothing better than when you guys look at each other talking about a semi-obscure movie that nobody cares about and decide you're going to devote a lot of time to it on this show it on this show. Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, and... Is Madeline Stowe in that? No, there's a really good actress in it too. I don't, it's been a long time since. Is it Mark Pellington? The director? Yeah. Director of the Jeremy video. Yes. It's a good movie. It's got a nice twist. Soy and I watched it over Christmas break and she loved it. But she seems to like, Rhe from Hell. Well, Rheeling. of all the great random endings of all time. Random? Yeah, where it's like this is whatever it's a stupid from hell movie but the choice of the mom holding the two kids over the cliff. It's incredible. I think I got 20 years of column jokes out of this about who do you choose Jaylin or Jason. Hold them over the cliff? Jaylin's going, Dad, give me your other hand. Where are you out on that right now? I dropped Jaylin. You did. You did. Yeah. Yeah. day. Will Jayland be on the Celtics the start of next season? So we're taping this on June 4th. Yeah. You think he gets Trager in the draft? I would say 70, 30, not on the Celtics. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, by the time people listen to this, maybe he won't be on the Celtics. But yeah, the good son analogy. I would have it with you guys. I got. Yeah, I think we all know him getting dropped. Yeah. What's crazy about this though is... Does that indicate who did I drown then in that analogy if I'm the one that gets dropped? Was Sean trying to throw a rock on you? No I pulled both of you up. I figured I had something in the strength. I say both of you guys. They filmed this though. It's no CGI because we don't have CGI back then. No. They have people on you know those things like they're actually dangling. They're actually dangling. They're all dangling from harnesses and at some point, and at some point Kalkin had to do like a 30 had to do like a 30 foot he rehearsed it for weeks they rehearsed all of it and it's why it looks so cool because you're watching like how are they doing this yeah and he must have landed on one of those like parachute landing spots or when Wendy Krusen's character goes down and it's clearly a stunt woman but like it does not look like she's harnessed anything no she that's a great sequence she falls on like the outcropping of the trees and rocks that that's so nuts so in general so Joseph Rubin he mentions director but the way he shoots this it's really good I think it's really good I think it's like it's like a whole you. Like, my whole take on the movie is that it's ironically written by one of the great novelists of our lifetimes and it's a very trashy and clearly like it was rewritten and kind of stripped down and it's like not a good script. But it is made with a level of Hollywood craft that is extremely high for such a junkie piece of material. That was and McEwen who's I think more or less disowned the movie or whatever even though he got arbitration credit for it was like the idea was to do something, the idea was like the idea was to do something was to do something class in a higher art way. So it does make sense. The thing that this movie has is just the two kid performances are among the best you can really get from kids. They're fantastic. And they're now, I think, widely acknowledged as like two of the great child stars in the history of movies. Yeah. It's funny, this whole era and the movies were done. They're all like basically, it's like going to a diner and having like the best patty melt and the best fries and the best shake. That's what these movies are. Yeah. They're all. They're all. They're all. They're all really. female and Jennifer Jason Lee's like great in that movie you know and it's also really well directed then we did him that rocks the cradle just Curtis Hanson yep a couple years before he does LA Confidential and D'Morne is incredible in that and this movie like this would just be like a fucking lifetime movie 20 years later but it's like a 20 million dollar movie that had the hottest star under 21 probably in the last 50 years and it's really good and he basically I was of somebody who would have been like the America's sweetheart big huge movie star for as rare as it is that it's a child like this to be like my for my next act I'm going to be Hannibal Lecter in in a movie like even though I am currently still like I'm Kevin McAllister and everybody knows him. It was honestly a great zag. Yeah I mean because it's like you have a five year window when you're a kid star. It's not going to last. It's just not. You're going to grow up, you're going to look awkward and people aren't going to stay with you. And I thought they did a good job of like reinventing him. Well, it's such a complicated conversation because obviously his father was playing such a big role in kind of charting the path for his career. And this was really important to his dad to mess with the expectations of a Colkin. Well he was. Like Brad Pitt. Like Brad Pitt. Like, Brad Pitt. Like, where he's like, we got to mix it. We got to mix it. We got to mix it. We got to mix it up. What are you doing? I mean there are a lot of other examples of like young child stars over the years like Mickey Rooney was like this Elizabeth Taylor was like this Shirley Temple was like this they got their starts really early on and then when they started to get into their teens in their 20s if they stuck around in Hollywood that's when they would start darkening their persona and taking on more challenging stuff and sometimes playing the villains to kind of upset your expectations but like you said he's 10 years old I think when he makes this movie or 11 years old. Well he breaks through And then Home Alone is a phenomenon in 1990. And it's one of the biggest movies of the 1990s, right? And then does the My Girl thing, which was a big deal, that he dies in my girl. I love My Girl. And then the dad, who were about to talk about Kit Culkin, they want to do Home Alone too, and he's like, that's fine. But I want my son to be in the good son. And they're already like ahead of the director, they have the stars, they're already about to make it. They're already about to make it. And he basically, and he basically, and he basically, and he basically, and he basically, and he basically, and he, and he basically, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and the stop production, wait a year for him to finish home alone two. And it was probably the right move even if he sounds like a psycho. But the next ones after this were getting even with dad with Ted Danson. But two people right after you would have wanted them, like three years after and then Ritchie Rich and then it was over. He stopped acting when he was 14. Yeah, when does the club movie? movie about as passionately as anything we've covered in 440. A vicious review. Just like could not have been more upset about how much he hated it. He wrote during this movie, What were Culkin's parents thinking? When they pushed him into a movie where he drowns his baby sister tries to drown his little sister wants to push his mother off the cliff, if this kid grows up into another one of those pathetic screwed up former child stars who were always spilling their guts on the talk shows, a lot of adults will share the blame. half what happened. Although he seems like a very well adjusted older adult. But would that have happened to McCulloch and even if he didn't make the good son? I mean you could just you could just say that being exposed to that level of fame and being involved in the projects that he was involved in before that. To me that the Ebert reading on this is really interesting because he always gets a little bit caught up in the morality. He had a hard time with like juvenile comedy and he has a hard time with really mean-spirited movies historically. Yeah. And he comes down. And he comes down. And he comes down really mean them he almost always overlooks the craft he thinks really about like the feeling which I I love about him but he's like so hard on this movie because all he's thinking about is little kids who love makali kulkin watching makali kulkin in the movie yeah I mean I was to is that a way to look at the movie I don't think I was like as engaged I'm the opposite I'm like this move is fucking awesome well I think it now it's almost easier to look at as a museum piece than probably in the moment the moment now it's a multiple time I think it adds like an interesting layer of like twisted psychology to the whole entire movie if you think about the fact that Macaulay Colkin's father wanted him to play Henry. Yes. Like that's fucked up I agree. But it does give the movie itself like a little bit of like oh like this is some seasoning I didn't expect to have this off-screen narrative into it. To Craig's point about when he sat down to watch it he never thought in a million years Macauli would be the villain. Yes. I remember. I remember I remember seeing the trailer I remember seeing the trailer before a movie with the trailer probably started running maybe three four years because three four months before we didn't have the same kind of knowledge of what was coming back then as much and the trailer was really good and it was like wait is he's he's going on here and it was kind of shocking the trailer's really good like they did he's got the flashlight and it's clear that he's gonna be the creepy guy so there was awareness that it was him the movie now though I guess if it was it would be as mean-spirited. But for the most part if this was a studio drama now, they would give you at least some indication of why Henry is the way that he is. They would psychologize him. They wouldn't just make a movie about a sociopathic eight-year-old. Or there'd be a demonic possession or something. This movie is just, this kid is evil. That's it. Is that better or worse, though? I don't think it's better. I don't think it would have been. I think it's more enjoyable more enjoyable than it's more enjoyable than it's just like this is evil. he is the way he is and just thinking that he's just a bad terrible. My favorite part of the research was apparently the novelization is just like he's a sociopath. Nothing bad happened to him. Like this is right. He came out like this. I mean that was basically what the Kevin movie tried to do too. Kevin was just like I'm there's just always been something a little off with this kid. Kit Culkin. You know who his sister was? He's, she's the ice skate girl. She's the dog. Kitkkulkin. He's his father. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. Kitkulkin. who was his sister. Bonnie Bedelia. Oh, no kidding. No. Yeah. Bonnie Bedelia is their aunt? Callie Culkin's aunt. Wow. Bonnie Bedelia presumed innocent and Henry in this movie and would be able to get along I think. He could have been in the house. New York Times wrote a big piece about Kit Culkin in 1993 that I unearthed. Did you guys read this? No. Um, it's basically about Kitkulkin, why is this guy so powerful? and coming off home alone too which made 373 million dollars. Mr. Colkin was just rated the 48th most powerful person to Hollywood by Premier magazine ahead of Michael Douglas and Eddie Murphy. Earlier this month he signed an 8 million dollar contract with MGM for getting even with dad and then it goes into all the stuff that when he decided I want my son to be in the good son and everyone in Hollywood is like it doesn't work this way man you can't. just bully people around and he's like yeah it does if my son's a big enough star and guess what he's one of the biggest stars in the world then it's gonna work this way and you're gonna give me this and I'm gonna make this amount of money and apparently it was just a nightmare there's all these details about fights about everything where the camera is set up for a shot whereas hair's done properly scenes we're just he was just running the show for two three years yeah and what happens as soon as soon as soon as the star starts to fade Hollywood's like fuck this guy and that was it what's weird is that he's estranged from everybody now yes I don't think max talked to him and his kids don't point here yeah he talked he didn't interview recently he was on the Kate and Oliver Hudson sibling revelry podcast yeah I don't know do we need to add that to the rigor Kate and Oliver Hudson okay he said makalie said him and his seven living siblings and all of their kids are all estranged from Kitkulkin intend to keep it that way Wow. I mean, wasn't there also a lot about the way that the money was managed and who got what? That was also, I feel like a part of the controversy there, and so I think they all resent that in addition to the way that he had the Rooney Roll where you're protected somewhat, but I still feel like he could probably grab stuff under the table left and right. The Rooney Roll like the Mickey Rooney Roll? Yeah. Because I think you guys aren't estranged. Yeah, because I think, and Ben are. that any point. So far we're doing great. Elijah Wood, who really has a nice IMDb and has been in a lot of stuff. One of the great careers. Yes. The war, the ice storm, deep impact, the faculty, but Bill Simon's favorite. Yeah. Three Lord of the Rings movies, Internal Sunshine, beat out Jake Jelinehall for Lord of the Rings. Roger Ebert once called them the most talented actor in his age group in Hollywood history. And it's just aged beautifully. Like, like every five, eight years or whatever when he's kind of like moved into a different period of his life has been like in a movie that is like appropriate for that like it's it's just been a real pleasure we talked about him in the Ice Storm podcast just a really good actor terrific in that movie great in this movie yeah he's kind of always great it's weird because he you know he has one year later he's in north which is like one year that he didn't miss a beat he didn't it's interesting to kind of map him alongside makulle Kalkin who seemed like an absolute rocket ship like there was nothing that would ever take him down and hit like he said his crew basically stops after Richie rich and and Elijah would still