Oliver! star Mark Lester undertook a change of pace - and then some - with this uncomfortable, Bad Seed-like shocker. He plays Marcus, the preteen son of a recently-remarried, well-to-do writer, whose first wife (Marcus's mother) died a mysterious death. Marcus simultaneously resents his stepmother and feels erotically drawn to her; in desperation, he quickly and aggressively drives her to the point of a psychotic breakdown. He then quietly confesses his act of matricide to the stepmom and implores her to off her husband and abscond with the insurance monies.