Was Todd already crazy before he confronted Dussander? Reading the story I had this personal hunch that Todd was evil from the start. To me this is the only way it works but I also caught a theme about how monsters can put their evil inside you and it will grow there, so it made me wonder. That made me think that Todd was supposed to be a model student (as the title implies) that was not malicious at the start and what he was exposing himself to was eating away at him. However, in his initial confrontation with Dussander he seems so calculated and conniving. Surely he finds Dussander atrocious for his misdeeds but the way Todd handles him makes it seem like Todd has a lot of experience with manipulating and bending people to his will already.
When I rewatched it recently the movie made Todd seem much more innocent in the beginning. I hadn't seen the movie since it came to VHS but I couldn't finish it this time.
As an aside, I felt like the ending was a let down. I want to hope that there was some sort of last-second external influence that caused the final perfectly timed derangement but I didn't write the story. I think if Mr. King could have solved the Colorado Kid mystery if he cared to, as he said, then he could have written Todd out of his impending doom. The thought of living Todds out there is quite frightening to me.
When I rewatched it recently the movie made Todd seem much more innocent in the beginning. I hadn't seen the movie since it came to VHS but I couldn't finish it this time.
As an aside, I felt like the ending was a let down. I want to hope that there was some sort of last-second external influence that caused the final perfectly timed derangement but I didn't write the story. I think if Mr. King could have solved the Colorado Kid mystery if he cared to, as he said, then he could have written Todd out of his impending doom. The thought of living Todds out there is quite frightening to me.