Henry Evans

"Hey Mark. Don't f**k with me."

- Henry Evans

"You like my sister, don't you? Such a sweet little girl... it'd be too bad if something were to happen to her... like she got hurt... you'd be sad, wouldn't you, Mark? But hey, accidents can happen..."

- Henry Evans to his cousin Mark about his little sister Connie

Henry Evans is the main antagonist in the 1993 film The Good Son.

He is portrayed by Macaulay Culkin.

Film
Henry is the cousin of the film's 12-year-old protagonist Mark, who lost his mother to a fatal disease.

Since his father must go on a business trip to Tokyo, he leaves Mark with his uncle Wallace and aunt Susan. Soon, Mark meets his cousin Henry, who seems like a good cousin and a nice friend at first. However, his true nature starts to show up after some of his behavior is revealed, like shooting animals with a nail gun, causing massive pile-ups using a dummy named Mr. Highway, and actually smoking (the latter, which he pressures Mark into smoking, telling him he's "gonna die anyway").

He also points out that he probably killed his own brother before the movie's events. Mark tries many times to warn his uncle and aunt about Henry's behavior, but they won't listen to him.

After Henry tries to murder his own sister during a small trip to a frozen lake where everyone were skating on the un-fragile side of the lake, Mark once again tries to warn his uncle and his aunt, but once again they refuse to listen.

Soon, Henry warns Mark he'll try to kill his own mother due to her loving Mark more than him. Mark chases Henry into the garage when he finds out Henry isn't there. Henry then slams the door tell Mark "good night" as the garage fills up with black gas. Mark gags and coughs violenly as be collapses. Henry tricks his mom into taking a walk on the woods, where she finally asks if he killed his brother, since she found a toy of his long thought lost in Henry's possession, to which he replies "What if I did?". He tricks her into following him to a cliff and pushes her off, but she hangs herself to a branch below. He tries to drop a rock on her to finish her off, but Mark comes to her rescue and fights Henry, and both almost fall down the cliff, but Susan (having just reached the top) hangs onto them both and must decide which one to save. She actually wanted to save them both, but knowing that each boy required both hands to save, that Henry tried to kill her (and would likely try again), that Mark was right all along and trying to save her, she ultimately rescues Mark and releases Henry, leaving him to fall to his death onto the rocks below.

Personality
"No fair? What do you think this is, a game?"

- Henry

Henry was an evil, remorseless, sadistic child who was utterly incapable of appreciating the well being of others and found the idea of death to be rather enthralling, with the exception of his own. Henry was not only unable to understand why causing other people pain and suffering was something he should not have been doing, he enjoyed it immensely. After murdering an aggressive dog with his homemade crossbow, Henry felt only joy and had a broad, wicked smile on his face whilst watching the car accident he caused get bigger.

It seemed that envy is what awoke the beast in Henry as he drowned his 3 year old brother, Richard, in the bathtub purely out of jealousy for how his parents were paying more attention to him. After finding that killing Richard had been so easy for him, Henry discovered that he did not feel saddened when bad things happened to other people and then lived by a philosophy: "Once you realize that you can do anything, you're free. You could fly. Nobody can touch you, nobody". Henry took surprisingly little care of his own health, rationalizing that smoking was ok because everyone would die one way or another. Had he lived to be older, he possibly would have started using other drugs and alcohol. Henry stated that he used to be afraid before realizing that doing horrible things made him happy instead of sad, or had no impact on him either way.

Henry's reason for killing his little sister and mother seemed to stem from a desire to devastate Mark more than from jealousy, as he noticed how close Mark was becoming to them both and had already demonstrated that other peoples suffering thrills him. Henry had already made it clear he did not like Connie (his sister) but it was odd how he chose to kill his mother instead of Mark. He possibly preferred her to be dead than be a mother/mother figure to anyone else, or felt that she was too close to learning the truth about Richard's death.

Henry obviously felt no genuine love for his family, he probably only wanted Richard out of the way so he would get all the attention and praise of his family and so that they would service him. Henry was horrible to Connie, aside from trying to kill her, he would psychologically and physically torture her on occasion and addressed her as "vermin", at one point.

Henry was also surprisingly calculating for his young age, he was able to make the murder of Richard and the attempted murder of Connie seem like an accident. Had he gotten away with killing his mother he could have refused having been there when it happened, and it would have been surmised that she had either fallen or committed suicide due to her heartbreak over Richard's death. The latter of which is something everyone knew she felt guilty for. Henry also convinced everyone that Mark's grievance over his mother was driving him to insanity, keeping all suspicion off himself and was even willing to blame him for the traffic collision he caused.

At first, Henry's psychopathic nature had simply been due to jealousy, but since then it had developed to the point that another person's life having value was a fact that Henry was simply unable to even remotely process. The shine he took to Mark at first was possibly because he saw Mark as a potential pawn rather than a friend, as he viewed everyone he knew as disposable if they no longer satisfied his needs or posed a threat to his freedom, which was what he valued above everything else.

What was really disturbing about Henry was that he understood the difference between right and wrong, and knew perfectly well that what we was doing was bad but he did not care. If he wanted to do something, and if it was within his reach to do it, he would do it, without caring how it affected other people. Despite Henry's interest in death, and enjoyment for causing it to others, he valued his own life and was afraid of dying himself. As far as Henry was concerned, it was ok for everyone to die or be in pain except for him. He briefly tried to convince Mark to follow in his footsteps and give up all traces of empathy so his life would be better, possibly implying that Henry thought everyone should be like him. Henry also had a ridiculously excessive sense of self-worth, as he felt that he was entitled to everything he wanted just because he wanted it, with no rational reasoning.

Henry's greatest weakness was ultimately his incapability to understand love completely, this is evident by when, even after he had subtly admitted to killing Richard to his mother and then tried to kill her, he still thought that his mother would always love him unconditionally. Henry also had to ask Mark if you are expected to cry at your mother's funeral, apparently only guessing that it is something most people would do.