The Bad Seed Returns – Film Review

Several years after the murderous events of the first movie left her father dead, Emma is now living with her aunt Angela and navigating high school. Angela’s husband begins to suspect that Emma may not be as innocent as she appears and suggests sending her off to boarding school. Meanwhile, a new girl at school seems to know Emma’s secrets, leaving Emma no choice but to slip back to her old ways and take care of her enemies by any means necessary.

Let’s just get this right out of the gate – Louise Archambault‘s The Bad Seed Returns (the sequel to 2018’s The Bad Seed) is without a doubt the most visually stunning Lifetime movie ever made. Believe it or not… yes, it actually looks and feels like a legitimate film and not some student project.

Archambault does a fine job directing this film, and it’s an extremely admirable effort. Is it a great movie? Sadly not. I wouldn’t even really call it a good movie, but it’s certainly heaps and bounds better than its predecessor and manages to tell a complete story even though it feels like one we’ve seen done countless times in the past.

The script this time was written by Ross Burge, Barbara Marshall, and the film’s star Mckenna Grace, surprisingly. In the past year, Grace has been making a name for herself in the music industry with incredible singles such as “Haunted House” and “You Ruined Nirvana,” and here, as a writer, she does the best she can.

It’s not a poorly written movie per se, but it certainly doesn’t feel like anything new to the genre whatsoever. It’s just another one of those “creepy kid” type movies that we’ve seen a million times before. That’s not to say the movie is boring all the way through because, thankfully, it’s not.

Unfortunately, it’s never a superbly entertaining movie but it’s not too bad, either. The lead performance from Grace is really what saves this whole thing from being completely forgettable. In the role of Emma Grossman, Grace has never felt more feisty and in control of a character. It’s marvellous to see.

One thing that was a little bit bothersome, though, was how similar some of the scenes in this film were to ones in the predecessor. The ending of this sequel is almost identical to the first one. There are a few changes, but it’s practically the same ending.

And yes, just like the first film, this film also has its fair share of strange moments that are ridiculously silly. For example – there’s a scene in this film in which Grace’s character Emma gets lightly slapped by a classmate, much to the horror of the teacher who insists she must go to the nurse’s office despite it being the lightest slap ever put to screen.

If you’ve already seen the first film, you might as well check out this sequel. It’s not going to be one of your favorites of the year (it certainly isn’t one of my favorites), but there are some things to be entertained by every so often. Still, this film is nothing special, unfortunately.

The Bad Seed Returns has some thrills sprinkled throughout and features a killer Mckenna Grace performance, but it’s ultimately a disappointingly predictable and familiar horror drama.