For the band, see Bad Ronald (band)

Bad Ronald (band)

Bad Ronald was a rap-rock band from Hartsdale who released their self-titled debut album in 2001. Their first single, "Let's Begin", was briefly on MTV's rotation and featured in the film Not Another Teen Movie. Their second single, "1st Time", was featured in the 2002 movie Orange County. The...

.

Bad Ronald is a television film that aired in 1974, starring Scott Jacoby, Dabney Coleman

Dabney Coleman

Dabney Wharton Coleman is an American actor, best known for his roles in 9 to 5, WarGames, You've Got Mail, Sworn to Silence, The Beverly Hillbillies and as the voice of Principal Peter Prickly in Recess and Recess: School's Out.-Early life:Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son of Mary...

 and sisters Lisa

Lisa Eilbacher

Lisa Eilbacher is an American television and motion picture actress.-Personal life:Eilbacher was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the daughter of an American oil company executive. She was raised in France...

 and Cindy Eilbacher. It is based on the book of the same title by Jack Vance

Jack Vance

John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...

.

After being out of print for years following its initial VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 release in the 1980s, Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...

 reissued the film on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in August 2009, as part of its "Archive Collection".

Plot

Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby

Scott Jacoby

Scott Jacoby is an American actor. He won an Emmy Award for his role in the 1972 television film That Certain Summer. He is also famous for playing the lead role in the made for TV film Bad Ronald 1974....

) is a socially inept, awkward high school youth with budding artistic talent and a predilection for fantasy, who is often ridiculed for his behavior and mannerisms. His overprotective mother, Elaine (Kim Hunter

Kim Hunter

Kim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire...

 of Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes (1968 film)

Planet of the Apes is a 1968 American science fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. The film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly and Linda Harrison...

) is in need of surgery and plans for Ronald to become a doctor and cure her illness. Ronald's father has not been heard from in years, having divorced his mother and then agreeing to terminate his parental rights in exchange for not having to pay child support.

One afternoon, while asking Laurie Matthews out, he is rejected and then ridiculed by her friends. As he returns home, he accidentally knocks over her younger sister Carole. Carole taunts Ronald, at which point he pushes her over, inadvertently killing her when she strikes her head on a concrete block during the fall. He buries the body and confesses to his mother, but fearing the police will not believe that it was accidental, Ronald and his mother wallpaper the door frame to the downstairs bathroom and convert the closed-off space to a living quarters for Ronald. The plan is for him to hide in the room until the incident blows over, and Mrs. Wilby tells the police that Ronald ran away.

Ronald's mother keeps paying attention to what neighbors (particularly the nosy Mrs. Schumacher) and others are saying about the young girl's disappearance and tells Ronald that when it's safe, he can return to a normal life. One afternoon, she is taken into a hospital for gallbladder surgery, from which she unexpectedly dies. In the meantime, Ronald has created a fantasy world in his own head consisting of a prince and a princess that live happily until a devil appears and a struggle begins.

Shortly after her death, the house is sold to the Wood family, consisting of a mother (Pippa Scott

Pippa Scott

Pippa Scott is an American actress who has appeared in movies and television since the 1950s. She was also married to a founding partner of Lorimar Productions, Lee Rich...

), father (Dabney Coleman

Dabney Coleman

Dabney Wharton Coleman is an American actor, best known for his roles in 9 to 5, WarGames, You've Got Mail, Sworn to Silence, The Beverly Hillbillies and as the voice of Principal Peter Prickly in Recess and Recess: School's Out.-Early life:Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son of Mary...

) and three teenage daughters: Babs, Althea and Ellen.

As Ronald needs food to eat, and begins to crave human interaction, sudden disappearances of food and odd noises are experienced by the new family. Babs, the youngest daughter of the family, becomes identified with Ronald's princess and he identifies himself as the prince. Duane Matthews (who is well liked by the family), oldest daughter Ellen's boyfriend and brother of the previously mentioned Matthews girls, becomes identified with the monster that threatens their happiness. Ronald's goal is to "regain" his princess and remove anything, including the members of her family, that stops his dream from becoming reality. During this time, neighbor Mrs. Schumacher spots Ronald on a venture outside his space and dies of a heart attack from the shock; fearing the police will blame him, Ronald ends up burying her as well.

Mr. and Mrs. Wood then make plans to go out of town for a couple of days, leaving the girls on their own. Ronald confronts Babs when she is alone in the house and tells her she is his princess. She flees to Mrs. Schumacher's house next door (unaware of her aforementioned demise), but Ronald locks her in the basement and forges a note for her sisters to find, claiming she has run away. Both Ellen and Althea are skeptical of the note, but the police refuse to do anything. Ronald later attacks Duane, knocking him out and tying him up. The police now suspect something is amiss and advise Ellen and Althea to check into a hotel, but they refuse.

Shortly after the police leave, Althea notices one of the many peepholes Ronald has drilled. When she approaches it, she suddenly sees Ronald's eye staring back at her, and screams in terror as Ronald then breaks through the wall. The police, who have been watching the house, hear the girls' screams and rush back. Ronald is captured as he tries to flee, crying out for his mother. Soon afterwards, Duane and Babs are discovered, shaken but not seriously harmed