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| “ | It doesn't matter how I feel. He's dead anyway. | „ |
| ~ A young Emma coldly dismissing the classmate she murdered. |
Emma Grossman is the titular main protagonist of the 2018 film The Bad Seed (a remake of the 1956 horror film of the same name) and its 2022 sequel, The Bad Seed Returns.
In her characterisation, she is a psychopathic little girl who kills one of her classmates. She is based on the original film's antagonist: Rhoda Penmark.
She was portrayed by Mckenna Grace.
Personality[]
Like Rhoda Penmark in the original film, Emma has no conscience or empathy, and is willing to harm and even kill people to get what she wants, when she wants it. She is adept at hiding her true self behind a sweet, innocent façade to manipulate adults, but other children sense who she truly is and avoid her. She is also prone to violent temper tantrums, and secretly tortures animals.
Emma comes from a loving home with none of the abuse and neglect that often occurs in a psychopath's formative years; like Rhoda, Emma appears to have simply been born evil.
Biography[]
The Bad Seed[]
Emma lives with her widowed father David, her mother having died when she was a toddler. When her classmate Milo wins a citizenship award she wanted, Emma lures him to an isolated creek, drowns him, and takes the medal. David is concerned about Emma's indifferent response to the boy's death, and sends her to a child psychologist, who warns him that Emma is manipulative and selfish.
David then hires a nanny, Chloe, the previous nanny having suffered an "unfortunate accident". Chloe can see Emma for who she really is, and they take an immediate dislike to each other. Emma catches Chloe stealing David's pain medication and blackmails her into staying away from her father, whom Chloe has designs on. Eventually, Emma decides that Chloe is a threat to her, and kills her.
When one of Emma's teachers dies under suspicious circumstances as well, David asks her if she knows anything about their deaths. Emma matter-of-factly admits to murdering Chloe, her teacher, and their previous nanny, and is puzzled by David's horrified reaction.
David takes Emma to an isolated cabin to figure out what to do. Emma senses that David is going to tell the police what she did, and tries to kill him. David then decides to kill Emma to spare her being institutionalized. He gives her warm milk laced with sleeping pills, and prepares to shoot her as she sleeps. At that moment, however, the cabin's caretaker walks in and, believing David has lost his mind, shoots him dead, saving Emma's life. David's sister Angela takes custody of Emma, and promises her that everything is going to be alright; Emma then hugs her, hiding the cold, predatory look on her face.
The Bad Seed Returns[]
Four years later, Emma is a teenager living with Angela, her husband Robert, and their infant son, Cade. She has perfected her mask of sanity, pretending to be a normal teenager whose life consists of school, her friends, and boys. Secretly, however, she still commits random acts of cruelty for her own pleasure, such as trying to drown Cade by leaving the back door open so he will crawl into the pool. Angela saves Cade at the last minute, and blames Robert for not keeping a closer eye on the child. When Robert also begins to suspect that Emma is not all she seems, she tries to kill him by slipping the jack on his car while he works on it, but he survives. As he recovers, she takes sadistic pleasure in ignoring him while he suffers. He threatens to have her locked up unless she goes to boarding school and stays out of their lives.
A new girl at school, Kat, infiltrates Emma's circle of friends and says she remembers Emma bullying her in grade school, and that she knows about the murders. Meanwhile, Emma's friend Steph is elected captain of her school dance team, a position Emma wanted, so she kills Steph's dog and triggers her epilepsy by stealing her medication, resulting in a seizure that kills her. Angela finds video footage of Emma taking Steph's dog, and confronts her niece, who admits to taking the dog but insists she did not hurt it. Angela talks with the caretaker who shot David, who says that David had told him that Emma "would do it again", although he did not know what that meant. Angela realizes that Emma committed all of the murders, and that she is a psychopath. Emma realizes the same thing after reading the Psychopathy Checklist online, and is thrilled.
Emma lures Kat to her house by promising to tell her "everything", and poisons her hot chocolate. She then calls 9-11 claiming that Kat is burning down the house, and sets a fire in the kitchen. Robert hears Cade crying and struggles up the stairs to save him, only to find that Emma has left a recording of Cade's cries in his crib. Emma taunts him as she leaves him to die. Angela arrives as the house burns down, and calls Emma a monster before rushing inside to save Robert; she is too late, however, and they both die of smoke inhalation, while Kat is burned to death.
Emma, meanwhile, is hailed as a hero for surviving yet another family tragedy, and a social worker promises to keep her and Cade together in the foster care system. As the social worker goes to make the arrangements, Emma flashes a cruel, victorious smile.
External Links[]
- Emma Grossman at the Villains Wiki
- Emma Grossman at the Pure Evil Wiki
- Emma Grossman at the Entertainingly Detestable Wiki