Henry Evans has the face of an angel and the eyes of no one. He smiles at adults, says the right thing… and throws a dummy onto the highway to cause a chain-reaction crash just to see what happens. His cousin soon discovers what lies behind the façade: a total absence of guilt, of fear, of empathy. The Good Son (1993) portrays something that behavioral genetics studies in earnest: children in whom empathy seems never to have switched on.
// The theoryWhen empathy never starts
Modern research has a name for Henry's profile: callous and unemotional traits (callous-unemotional). Psychologists Essi Viding and Paul Frick described them as an early lack of guilt, empathy and fear response that appears in childhood and predicts severe and persistent antisocial behavior. And twin studies attribute a notable heritability to them: in this specific subgroup, biology weighs more than in the average troubled child.
Here it is easy to leap toward "born that way," and Henry invites it. But the fine print still rules: heritable traits do not mean a sealed destiny. They fit the category of life-course-persistent antisocial individuals defined by Terrie Moffitt —a minority who combine early deficits with environments that amplify rather than correct them—. Switched-off empathy is a serious risk factor; it is not a sentence.
A risk trait, not a verdict
Callous traits are the finding that most resembles the "bad seed"… and the one that demands the most care. Yes, they have a biological and heritable basis. But Frick's research is emphatic about something hopeful: even children with high traits respond to early intervention —programs of warm, consistent parenting reduce their antisocial trajectory—. The environmental trigger works in both directions: a bad environment amplifies the risk; a good one contains it. Henry is the case without intervention; not the case beyond remedy.
Get the map of theories for free
Subscribe to the criminal archive —one case a week, no spam— and I'll send you The map of theories: the great currents of criminology on a single sheet.
// The subjectThe trigger the film hides
What makes The Good Son more than a horror tale is that it plants the environment without underlining it. Henry does not grow up in a vacuum: there is a loss in the family (the death of his baby brother), an unresolved grief, a house where no one wants to see what the boy is. The film leaves open the question that science also asks: how much of Henry is biology and how much is the trigger of a family that looks the other way? It does not resolve it —and there it succeeds—: it places the boy right at the gene × environment crossroads where behavioral genetics situates the real cases.
Henry Evans
// The flawThe danger of labeling a child
Henry's flaw is especially delicate because we are talking about minors. Pinning on a child the label of "psychopath" or "callous" can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: if adults treat him as an irrecoverable monster, they close off precisely the doors —affection, trust, opportunities— that would most reduce his risk. That is why serious clinicians use these traits with extreme caution, as a signal to intervene, never as a verdict on who the child will become.
And the film's ending dramatizes the most uncomfortable dilemma: the mother must choose whom to save, Henry or his cousin. It is society deciding what to do with the child of severe, early conduct —protect him or protect ourselves from him?—. Science's answer is not so cinematic: neither abandon him to his "nature" nor lock him up for life, but intervene early and seriously, while the trigger can still be defused. Explaining Henry's lack of empathy does not excuse it; it points to the window in which he could still have been reached.
Intervene early, don't sentence
If callous traits are a malleable risk factor, the message is clear: detecting them early serves to help, not to condemn. Parenting interventions that teach warmth, consistency and emotional response reduce the antisocial trajectory even in the highest-risk children. The costly error is the opposite —writing off a child because he "came out crooked"—, which guarantees the outcome we feared. Henry is what happens when no one intervenes; science says there was almost always room to do so.
Henry's empty smile frightens because it seems final. Modern behavioral genetics insists on the opposite: a child's switched-off empathy is a risk to tend to, not an identity to seal. The "good son" of the title is ironic; the real hope lies in the fact that no son is written off at the age of ten.
Three key takeaways
- Callous/unemotional traits (Viding, Frick) —an early lack of empathy, guilt and fear— have notable heritability and predict persistent antisocial behavior (Moffitt).
- But they are a malleable risk factor, not a sentence: even children with high traits respond to early parenting intervention. The environmental trigger works in both directions.
- Labeling a child a "psychopath" can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The useful reading: detect early to help and intervene, not to write off.
Sources · further reading
- Viding, E. y cols. (2005). «Evidence for Substantial Genetic Risk for Psychopathy in 7-Year-Olds». Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46(6).
- Frick, P. J. & White, S. F. (2008). «Callous-Unemotional Traits and Antisocial Behavior». Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49(4).
- Moffitt, T. E. (1993). «Life-Course-Persistent and Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior». Psychological Review, 100(4).
- Raine, A. (2013). The Anatomy of Violence. Pantheon.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Henry Evans?
Henry Evans («El buen hijo») es un villano de El buen hijo, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. Can you be born with empathy switched off?
¿Por qué Henry Evans (El buen hijo) se convierte en villano?
The Good Son and behavioral genetics: Henry is the boy with the angelic face and the empty gaze. The real science of "callous traits" complicates "born that way" with one word: environment.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Henry Evans?
El caso de Henry Evans se analiza desde la Genética conductual. Behavioral genetics today studies "callous-unemotional" traits in childhood: an early lack of empathy and guilt, with notable heritability, that predicts persistent antisocial behavior. Henry Evans, the boy in The Good Son, is its horror portrait —angelic outside, hollow inside—. But the film also plants an environmental trigger (a loss, a broken family), placing him right at the gene × environment crossroads where the real science lives.
