Every time early this year, the “decent but not great” low-budget horror films that people want to kind of revisit come to play. It happened once back in January of 2016 with “The Boy” where audiences and critics were split. I can tell and guarantee you that the whole idea and concept of Nicholas McCarthy’s horror flick “The Prodigy” follows that certain curriculum.
Sarah Blume (Taylor Schilling) is a woman that in August of 2010, she gives birth to his newborn son, Miles, during a time when Edward Scarka, a creek serial killer, got shot to death.
8 years later in the modern-tech world of 2018, Miles is 8 years old and Sarah and her husband (now parents) discover behavioral traits that can come off as violent for the boy. While committing a violent act at school with attacking a classmate, his mother Sarah brings him to a psychologist for his issues.
The psychologist turns over a tape to his colleague, Arthur, that reveals gibberish language Miles spoke during his sleep. Arthur reveals to the psychologist that it is Hungarian language. The most irritating thing that Sarah encountered from her son is that the language translates words that Edward Scarka would say.
Meanwhile, Sarah soon develops a fear for his son because of this. Miles, in relation to the translated language, starts to get interested in the news coverages of Scarka himself. The question for her raises: “Is my son inspiring to be the psychopath he wants to be?”
When evaluating the past horror films that came out early of the year like for example, last year’s “Winchester”, it not only relied on annoying jump scares, but also relied on a cheap budget making it out to be an independent and a mainstream film altogether.
“The Prodigy” does something familiar the way 2016’s “The Boy” did. It interested the audience. It raised questions about it’s storytelling. Finally, the audience pointed out its flaws it had. There grabs a hint that we might get a usual pattern of these type of horror films each year.
This film, in my eyes, is a solid horror flick from the newly-revived Orion Pictures after releasing the Christmas zombie horror-musical flick which I loved, “Anna and the Apocalypse”.
Let me point out its problems first and foremost. The film does end very sequel-bait like most recent horror-box office bombs do. There are times that it can lazily incorporate CGI at certain points including one in a car crash.
You would expect the next problem I would mention would be jump-scares. Surprisingly, the film does not focus on that and instead, it it more psychological than this. Think of it as a discount M. Night Shyamalan you would purchase at Dollar General, but not at Dollar Tree.
When watching this film in the theater, I wasn’t really cringing throughout the entirety. I was more interested and intrigued by its storytelling it has to offer while expecting to be a forgettable, bland jump-scare fest like last year’s “The Possession of Hannah Grace”. How much consequence and detail they put into the story isn’t really repetitive to see at all.
I was a big fan of the chemistry between Miles and Sarah and how they reacted towards each other when something uncharacteristic occurs to Miles. With Miles, Jackson Robert Scott does such a fantastic job and gives the best child performance in a horror film since Milly Shapiro as Charlie Graham in last year’s “Hereditary”. The reason being is because he portrays the psychological changes of a child someone would expect in a horror film.
Taylor Schilling may not be Toni Collette in “Hereditary”, but still portrays a very realistic performance of Sarah Bloom, a mother dealing with problems with his son.
The most chilling performance no one ever mentions while reviewing this film is Colm Feore (looks so much like Mark Rylance) as Arthur Jacobson. While not the official psychologist in the film, he at times feels like an eerie one in a serviceable manner.
While mentioning such films in this review such as last year’s “Hereditary” and “The Sixth Sense”, “The Prodigy” feels like a mix of those two at the same time, but do not feel like a cheap rip-off of it. It feels like that Nicholas McCarthy when making this movie is thinking of those two movies in his head at the same time inspiring those films.
When going into this film, do not at any risk expect it to be another forgettable jump-scare fest once again like last year’s “The Possession of Hannah Grace”. Expect this to be more psychological than ever, but as serviceable as humanly possible. Not even close to Ari Aster’s mysterious modern classic that is “Hereditary”.
Grade: 7/10
