The 1979 short film The Veldt is based on the 1950 short story of the same title by Ray Bradbury.

It begins, as does the story, with wife and mother Lydia Hadley asking her husband George to look at the nursery. This is a full scale virtual reality room which forms images, sounds, and even smells from human thoughts. The Hadleys’ children, Peter and Wendy, have become fixated on lions in Africa.

The actors are uncredited but two are credited in Internet Movie Database and a third I recognized and confirmed it was indeed him. Jason Bateman plays Peter Hadley, the older child, and Danielle De Ruelle Bianco plays Wendy Hadley, the younger one. There is no information on who played George and Lydia.

The parents have made the mistake of giving the children almost everything they ever wanted and the children are unused to being denied anything. They have built up immense resentment to George’s attempts at discipline and become addicted to the nursery. Tom Bower plays a psychiatrist the parents bring in who is overcome with bad vibes from the nursery and warns the Hadleys to leave the house for a vacation.

The choice of Jason Bateman was perfect casting. I never liked him and have since learned from details given by people who knew him that he was never a nice boy. He probably barely had to act here, he was so natural. The other actors were all good too.

The film was obviously low budget but the special effects were well done. The film follows the story almost perfectly. I liked it probably better than the higher budget version in the movie The Illustrated Man. From the comments on YouTube, most people watch this to avoid reading the story, but both the story and the film are well worth anyone’s time and appreciation.