Bad Ronald - Buzz Kulik - (1974) DVD

Scott Jacoby, a nerdy high school youth, accidentally kills a neighbor's young daughter. Panicking mother, Kim Hunter, fears the police will not believe that it was an accident. She moves her son into a bathroom that she turned into a secret hiding place. After her death, a new family moves in. In the mean time, Ronald has gotten lost in a fantasy world created in his own head from being hidden away for so long.

An eerie film about an outcast teenage boy who lives in a fantasy world of princes and princesses which he spends his time elaborately illustrating on paper as a hobby. His mother has more sensible expectations for her son with a future medical career. But that bright future may never materialize after Ronald accidentally kills a girl passing by who was taunting him with cruel remarks. In a state of shock and grief at what he'd done, Ronald buries the girl's body in a shallow grave and returns home. His mother, upon seeing him exhausted and dirty, asks what happened. Ronald, still visibly shaken, tells his mother what he did and his she tries to console him advising that it was only an accident. But when he tells his mother that he buried the girl's body, his mother becomes alarmed and angered realizing that the police will wonder why Ronald buried the body as if to conceal the incident.

Knowing that this would destroy any chances of Ronald becoming a future doctor, his mother feels there is only one thing that can be done, hide Ronald in the house until things quiet down. She can just tell the police that he ran away. Ronald and his mother work through the night to convert a spare bathroom in their Victorian house into a well-concealed "hidden room" in the house where Ronald would remain at all times. One more problem arises as his mother must go in for some minor surgery which would leave Ronald on his own for a week alone. His mother dies during the operation. Ronald remains in the hidden room. The home is quickly put up for sale and a new family moves in. The house's new residents had already heard the horrific news of Ronald, and what he'd done, but they believed he had long since disappeared. Not long after the family settles in, they begin to hear unexplained noises and food begins missing from the kitchen. They wonder if their Victorian house also has a resident ghost. They find out soon enough!

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