20 Photos of Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood on Set of ‘The Good Son’ (1993)

After hits like Home Alone (1990) and My Girl (1991), young Macaulay Culkin was seen as a Hollywood darling. He was sought-after for roles, but it was his father Kit Culkin who decided that a thriller was his next best move. What resulted was an uncomfortable tale of a young boy filled with evil, The Good Son (1993). Though it didn’t get rave reviews from critics, the film affected a generation and many now-adults still talk about how haunting Culkin was in the role.

In The Good Son, Macaulay Culkin plays Henry Evans, a 12-year-old boy with psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies who it’s revealed later on in the film actually murdered his own baby brother. It was an entirely out of left field role for Culkin to take at that time, but one man thought he would be perfect for it, his father (and manager) Kit Culkin.

A true “stage dad,” the elder Culkin so wanted Macaulay to play Henry that he threatened to pull his son out of Home Alone 2 unless Fox agreed to cast him in The Good Son too. They agreed to the demand primarily because Macaulay had become such a bankable star for the studio.