The first thing I noticed when I first watched the cult made-for-TV thriller Bad Ronald was that its catchy and evocative title isn’t entirely apt. While the titular character does a bunch of stuff that accurately can be described as the opposite of good, he is also — as portrayed by Scott Jacoby (Return to Horror High) — far too sympathetic to dismiss as just another horror villain, which ultimately gives the movie a sense of pathos you don’t usually find in the genre.

A sensitive, imaginative young man with a fiercely loyal and protective mother, Ronald finds himself wanted by the police after he angrily lashes out at a taunting young neighbor girl and causes her accidental death. Terrified that he might be sent to prison, his mother (Planet of the Apes’ Kim Hunter in a typically great performance) hatches a plan that involves their turning their downstairs bathroom into a secret hiding place where Ronald can stow away until its safe for the two of them to leave town.

The plan goes awry when she dies during a necessary gall bladder operation and the house is sold to Dabney Coleman, Pippa Scott and their three cute blonde daughters. Already a bit loopy from his enforced isolation and the news of his mom’s death, Ronald becomes convinced that the youngest daughter is the princess of Atranta, the fantasy kingdom that has become his escape away from his terrible reality.

At just 70 minutes, Bad Ronald never has time to be boring and, in fact, probably could have benefited from an extra 10 minutes of character development to better justify the act of violence that sets the plot in motion. Beyond that, it is a surprisingly moving film with a highly effective premise and definitely one worth seeking out. —Allan Mott

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With the complexion of tapioca pudding and a hairstyle eventually made famous by Princess Di, Silvia Hacherman (Mimsy Farmer, Four Flies on Grey Velvet) is married to her work in a science lab. Her cad of a boyfriend, Roberto (Maurizio Bonuglia, Foxtrap), wishes she would be less serious and play more tennis. He just doesn’t understand Silvia has a lot on her mind, not the least of which is The Perfume of the Lady in Black.

While at Roberto’s pad, Silvia first glimpses the image in a mirror: her late mother spraying the smell-good. As writer/director Francesco Barilli’s first feature progresses, and our heroine hallucinates, we slowly piece together the acts of awfulness that befell her mom when Silvia was a child — acts that may extend to Silvia herself.

They aren’t pleasant; revisiting them unhinges Silvia, sending her into a spiral of madness and regression. As this happens, Barilli gives his film a Rosemary’s Baby vibe, made all the more distinct by its apartment-building setting and the strange tenants who inhabit its rooms.

But Perfume is not really a horror film, at least not until the very end. It’s also not a giallo, despite that vague title, the occasional saturated color gel and the fate of Barilli’s characters. The path he takes to get there is a bit too bumpy for narrative’s sake; how much you’re willing to forgive its leaps may correspond directly to your overall enjoyment. There’s no denying this Lady has style; I just wish she made a little more sense, too. —Rod Lott

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So memorable is Bernard Herrmann’s whistled theme to Twisted Nerve that Quentin Tarantino wisely appropriated it to equal unsettling effect in Kill Bill: Vol. 1. While good, the British thriller itself is not close to being as “sticky.”

Hywel Bennett lost his penis in 1971’s Percy, but here, he loses his mind. As Martin, the young man fancies shifting into an alternate personality — that of the 6-year-old Georgie — in order to weasel his way into the life of Susan (Hayley Mills, The Parent Trap), a beautiful, 17-year-old librarian.

It works. In a real credibility-strainer, no matter the lengths taken by the screenplay to set it up, he goes to live with her for a week in the boardinghouse run by Susan’s single MILF (Billie Whitelaw, The Omen). Ingratiating himself to the fellow residents, Georgie refers to himself in the third person, laughs at burps, makes nonsensical jokes (“Batman is a fat man, ha-ha!”) and eventually dabbles in fatal stabbings.

Twisted Nerve is pinched by the permissiveness of its times. While it can do little more than hint at Martin’s suppressed homosexual urges and the Oedipal draw Whitelaw’s character feels toward Georgie, it operates on the theory that “mongolism” (now called Down syndrome) equates to psychopathic. Today, we know that’s not just poor science, but pure offense.

The title refers to “a ganglion gone awry,” and although director Roy Boulting (There’s a Girl in My Soup) is able to keep the film on its rails (thanks to the performances), it does become less and less special the more it drones on. It could be twice as suspenseful by losing a quarter of its two hours. —Rod Lott

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The late, great critic Roger Ebert wrote, “A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.” Meaning it isn’t the story that’s ultimately important in storytelling, but how it is told. For example, The Birth of a Nation is both riveting and disgustingly racist. Could Left Behind pull off the same trick? After all, I’m hardly the target audience.

What it is about: Based on Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ best-selling, 16-book series of fundamentalist thrillers, Left Behind concerns those who are “left behind” after the Christian Rapture. With all believers absent with leave, the Antichrist starts his ascension, and only a few brave souls understand the peril.

Having read the first book, I can say it fails Ebert’s axiom with honors. It’s a fear-mongering rant against the deadly horrors of secular humanism, a leaden tome of speechifying dullness incapable of creating even the mildest of tension or interest, mostly due to a complete lack of authorial talent. It’s so tedious it can’t even be enjoyed as camp. Can the movie succeed where the book failed?

How it is about it: Such a wingnut-fundamentalist film probably scared off potential stars, but placing faith (as it were) in the acting prowess of TV’s Mike Seaver? Kirk Cameron has all the heft of a vacuous teen idol whose 15 minutes ended 20 years ago.

Yes, it’s arguably unfair to tar him with the sheer awfulness of his Growing Pains sitcom fame, but boy, howdy, it’s both easy and entirely accurate. (What, Stephen Baldwin wasn’t available?) Beyond Cameron’s black hole of charisma, there’s a cast of D-list television actors and slumming Canadian talent. I’ve seen better acting in low-rent lawyer commercials.

Directing-wise? Same issue. Don’t blame the budget; Michael Tolkin’s brilliant 1991 film, The Rapture, posits a biblical apocalypse, yet still manages to be intellectually and emotionally thrilling on a budget less than that of your average TBS sitcom. No such luck here with one Vic Sarin: We’re talking Uwe Boll levels of incompetence. It’s monotonous, dreary and, cinematically speaking, ugly, flat and bland.

In the end, Left Behind is a preachy and insulting hunk of dull so awful it could only appeals to zealots, so unpleasant it may convince believers to leave the church. It’s an excruciatingly bad story, told in the least interesting manner possible.

And worse than all that? It’s as boring as sin. —Corey Redekop

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The grandaddy of all disaster flicks, Airport established the modern-day template that spawned many a towering inferno and Poseidon adventures, not to mention three of its own sequels. While time has granted it a thick layer of kitsch unintended by its makers, the movie still soars high as an all-star hoot.

Based on the 1968 novel by Arthur Hailey — who also wrote Zero Hour!, which Airplane! spoofed as mercilessly as this — the dramatic thriller is as sprawling as its cast. It’s so jam-packed and jumbo-sized that no true lead emerges, but Burt Lancaster (The Osterman Weekend) ostensibly is as Mel Bakersfeld, whose marriage is fraught with as many problems as the Chicago airport he manages. For one, the noise from passing jets rattles nearby homes; for another, the worst storm in six years has him and his co-workers gobsmacked with stress.

The biggest problem is that the Boeing 707 piloted by Capt. Demerest (Dean Martin, hic!) has among its passengers a mad bomber (Van Heflin, Shane) and, perhaps more annoying, a perennial stowaway in a manipulative li’l old lady (Helen Hayes, whose Oscar win for this qualifies as an all-time AMPAS joke). Crowding the running time are George Kennedy, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Seberg, Maureen Stapleton, Barry Nelson, Gary Collins and seemingly everyone except you and me.

Director George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street) has so much on his plate that the terrorism angle doesn’t really shift into gear until the second hour, meaning that the first is all setup — perhaps even an info dump, introducing character after character, subplot after subplot, and sometimes even cramming several into the screen at once with multiple splits. That he keeps this soap opera of the skies from crash-landing — until the script calls for it, of course — is quite an admirable feat. Airport should not be as much fun as it is. —Rod Lott

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