Night Hair Child

– Oliver! star Mark Lester undertook a change of pace - and then some - with this uncomfortable, Bad S..

Type:
Movie
Rating:
6.00 / 10
Duration:
One Hour and 29 Minutes
Release Year:
1972
Original Name:
Diabólica malicia
Night Hair Child (1972) - Also known as Diabólica malicia

Oliver! star Mark Lester undertook a change of pace - and then some - with this uncomfortable, Bad Seed-like shocker. He plays Marcus, the preteen son of a recently-remarried, well-to-do writer, whose first wife (Marcus's mother) died a mysterious death. Marcus simultaneously resents his stepmother and feels erotically drawn to her; in desperation, he quickly and aggressively drives her to the point of a psychotic breakdown. He then quietly confesses his act of matricide to the stepmom and implores her to off her husband and abscond with the insurance monies.

Producing Country:
Filming Locations:
Release Date:

14 Oct 1972

Language:

English, Italian

MPAA Content-Rating:
R – Restricted

Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. Contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them.

Director:

James Kelley, Andrea Bianchi

Writer:

Trevor Preston (original screenplay), Andrea Bianchi, Erich Kröhnke (story), Bautista Lacasa Nebot

Main Actors:

Mark Lester, Britt Ekland, Hardy Krüger, Lilli Palmer

Plot:

In this stylish and atmospheric psychological thriller reminiscent of Henry James's Turn of the Screw, a widowed English writer brings a young, glamorous new bride to his bleak, isolated home in rural Spain. She soon becomes obsessed with her 12-year old stepson, who she learns has just been expelled from school for mysterious offenses; while the boy enjoys, exploits, and feeds her increasing paranoia about him. That he is a brilliant and lonely child is obvious. But is he the victim of a neurotic woman's overwrought imagination-- in Shakespeare's words, the innocent flower, or the serpent under it?

Ratings:
Internet Movie Database:
6.0/10