Mr. Red Face

Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details about an upcoming episode.

Mr. Red Face when you first encounter him.

Mr. Red Face (alternately written as Mr. Redface by certain characters in-game), and otherwise known as Bruce, is the main antagonist of the 2024 retro horror game Bad Parenting 1: Mr. Red Face.

He is the "transformed" version of the game's main protagonist, Ron's abusive father, and is responsible for the death of said son, the abuse of his wife, and acts as a catalyst for the rest of the events of the game. While Bruce is bald, wears a white tank top, and has bulging white eyes; whenever he drinks too much his face goes red, inspiring the "Mr. Red Face" name. As Mr. Red Face, Bruce is taller and wider. His face is just as red as when he is drunk, though Mr. Redface's face is more demonic. Mr. Redface also wears green garments.

Personality

Bruce is abusive to both his son and wife and spends his time drinking, which often leads him to becoming more abusive. In the Dream World, Ron tells the Cat that Bruce would often hit or slap him when he was drunk.

Background history

The Real World

After Ron's Mom returns home late again one night from work, this night being Ron's birthday, Bruce accuses her of cheating on him and slaps her. This leads to a fight in which the Mom leaves, saying that she will return tomorrow to file for a divorce and take her son with her. During that night, Bruce drinks too much and seeking to punish the boy for his mother's assumed transgressions, ends up killing Ron when he strangles him and breaks his neck. Perhaps realizing what he's done at this point, he locks Ron's body in the closet of his own bedroom and tries to sleep, but the closet door opens in the night, leaving Bruce to stare at the dead body of his son in bed, and he begins to hallucinate the body moving and talking to him, causing him to break down with guilt as he weeps and begs for forgiveness, begging the corpse to "stop punishing me". Eventually, he can't take it anymore, and flees the house, so as not to be caught by police.

He decides to check in at a motel he had a business card for before leaving, and decides to wait there for a little before trying to leave town so as to not risk running into any officers. Meanwhile, Ron's mother returns to the home and after encountering Ron's ghost and letting him sleep in her room for the night, she wakes up to find he has disappeared (as his ghost actually only appears at night) and finally discovers Ron's rotting corpse in the closet. She breaks down into tears, and calls the murder in to the police. While being questioned, the police ask if she has any idea where the husband might have been. She says she doesn't, but then one of the officers notices that she dropped a card of sorts, although she doesn't recognize it at first. Picking it up, the police see that its a motel room keycard, and they suspect maybe that is where Bruce is. Sure enough, Bruce is arrested by the police and is locked away in prison, presumably for the rest of his life.

The Dream World

In the Dream World, Mr. Red Face appears the same night that Bruce comes to strangle Ron. After Bruce kills him, rather than accepting his death, Ron's spirit enters a denial-like state, passing on all his memories of his death over to his doll; the "gift" left behind by Mr. Red Face.

After Ron's spirit goes to the Dream World to try and find his father following the doll telling him that Mr. Red Face took him away, Ron comes across his father in a blank room. Bruce is shivering, terrified, constantly repeating "please stop punishing me" over and over. As Ron's spirit is with him in the Dream World, what Bruce sees in the Real World is Ron's corpse, tormenting him.

Mr. Red Face would torment Ron a few more times, even beating up his doll (which now looked the same as Ron's rotting body), before Ron gained the courage to fight back against Mr. Red Face and save his mom. In the Dream World, Ron tossed the spell card into the blank room his Mom was in, knowing Mr. Red Face would go to her next. Just as planned, Mr. Red Face creeped into the room and closed the door behind him. With the spell card activated, there is a bright flash of green and Mr. Red Face is destroyed as the spell card, which is really Bruce's motel keycard, is enough evidence to connect Bruce to the murder of Ron. With Ron accepting his death, Mr. Red Face loses all of his power and with Bruce's arrest, Mr. Red Face is finally defeated.

The Overlaps

• Bruce entering Ron's room and killing him Real World happened at the same time as Mr. Red Face appearing in Ron's room and leaving him the doll as a present in the Dream World.
• Bruce seeing hallucinations of Ron's corpse in the Real World happened at the same time as Ron's spirit visiting Bruce in the Dream World.
• The Mom finding the motel card seemingly slipping out of her pocket in the Real World happened at the same time as Ron's spirit tossing the spell card to her in the Dream World.
• Bruce's arrest in the Real World happened at the same time as Mr. Red Face's death in the Dream World.

Trivia

• The characters' name swaps back and forth between being spelled "Mr. Red Face" and "Mr. Redface" throughout the game's dialogue, depending on which character is mentioning him. Because the game's title is spelled with it as two words, this is considered the canonical spelling.