CineBad!!!

This early Jodie Foster flick is the embodiment of all my adolescent dreams.

Jodie’s genius dad dies of natural causes, but decides to wander off and cast himself in the ocean, rather than die at home. He leaves Jodie with a wad of cash and a house in the country that’s paid off for the next three years, allowing her to live alone and teach herself Hebrew in her spare time.

Immediately Jodie’s lush mother reappears after a lifetime of abuse and neglect, and Jodie unwittingly poisons her (as per her father’s written instructions.) Jodie sprinkles her mother with Fruit Fresh and dumps her in the basement.

But the fun’s not over yet, as Jodie’s Cruella DeVille-esque landlady sticks her nose in where it’s not wanted. Soon Jodie has a basement full of corpses and a polio-stricken magician boyfriend. Any movie featuring precocious teens who murder adults scores a 10 in my book. There’s even a performance by the oh-so-slimy Martin Sheen as the landlady’s pedophile son. This is a peach of a film which teaches us the importance of family values.