'THE BAD SEED' (LIFETIME CHANNEL REMAKE).......ROB LOWE AND LOWER.......

The Bad Seed (2018)    Not much we can work ourselves up to say about this thoroughly tepid Lifetime Channel remake.......directed by and starring Rob Lowe........

                Naturally, it features routine, mundane acting by Lowe and the supporting cast, befitting a made-for-TV movie.........so you shouldn't expect to see anything remotely like the shouting-to-the-rafters performances given by the 1956 film version's cast, all of them imported from the Broadway show.

                And like most TV movies, it pokes along at its own measured pace as if it has all the time in the world to lay out its story.........

                 A few pluses stood out, here and there.........

                 12 year old McKenna Grace, who looks like a midget Katie Holmes,  turns in fairly skillful work as the murderous child......not resorting to Patty McCormack-level screeching until the finale.....

                  Speaking of Patty.......the original baddest of all bad seeds turns up as a friendly psychiatrist.......just enough time to throw in a meta joke or two about how little McKenna  "reminds me of myself...".....heh, heh, heh.....yeh, we get it.

                  This new version transforms 'Leroy', the evil child's handyman nemesis, into a snarky, scheming babysitter.....played by Sarah Dugdale as if possessed by Aubrey Plaza.....(not a bad idea, but carrying over the original character's threat of 'the little pink electric chair for girls' sounds jarringly out of place today.......no self-respecting psychotic child of the new millennium would fall for it. )

                    For today's more bloodlusting audiences, a few of the child's murders are fully depicied instead of occurring offscreen. And since there's no longer any censorious Production Code to decree the child suffer punishment,  we knew the filmmakers didn't have to resort to hurling a lightning bolt at her like the original film did......literally.

                    Given the primal, stark nature of the story, we suspect that every generation will receive its very own remake of "The Bad Seed".........personally, we'll stick with our very own screwy, way-over-the-top Warner Brothers original.........for this version, a so-so 2 stars (**).