The cast of The Prodigy services the film in exactly the way you would expect it to, with Sarah (Taylor Schilling, Orange is the New Black) following the bad-kid mom protocol to a T. At 92 minutes, the film ends up flying through familiar beats and predictable twists, landing exactly in the same place where plenty of bad-seed films have before it. The Prodigy has some nifty tricks up its sleeve, but those expecting something new story-wise will be sorely disappointed.
But the most inspired chills and frights come from McCarthy’s use of audience anticipation, as several of the moments that played best in the theater were ones that were blatantly obvious and telegraphed, but almost comedically built up, proving that knowing something’s coming isn’t always enough to temper a good scare.
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McCarthy, like in his low-key but arresting debut The Pact, knows how to toy with the audience - dark shadows and closed doors are especially effective tools in his utility belt, and his jump scares almost always have an interesting twist to them.
The Prodigy mixes generically effective jump scares with some more inventive ones, including one that’s ingeniously inspired by a certain Mario Bava film. With a relatively pedestrian script by Jeff Buhler, the film is elevated by the team of McCarthy and cinematographer Bridger Nielson, who have worked together on multiple occasions. The Prodigy’s premature reveal undoubtedly has more pros than cons while it certainly deflates the air of mystery surrounding Miles’ condition, it also dispenses with the silly guessing game that usually accompanies these stories and goes straight for the jugular with some fun scares.ĭirector Nicholas McCarthy, who cut his teeth on horror films such as At the Devil’s Door and his cult favorite debut The Pact, proves to be a fine choice for The Prodigy. It doesn’t take a reincarnation specialist to decipher the direction the film is going.
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In fact, the cat’s out of the bag within the first five minutes of the film. Opening with the harrowing escape of a serial killer’s would-be victim intercut with the birth of our titular prodigy, the movie wastes no time telling us precisely what’s happening: at the exact same time little Miles (Jackson Robert Scott, It) enters the world, murderer Edward Scarka (Paul Fauteux) is ventilated with extreme prejudice by a heavily-armed SWAT team. Not so with Nicholas McCarthy’s new film, The Prodigy. A no-frills exercise in creepy-kid frights, the movie isn’t particularly worth writing home about, but through able direction and a nasty little performance by Jackson Robert Scott, it’s able to rise above your typical horror fare for a good amount of fun. Spoilers ahead.Ĭreepy child horror always revolves around the same basic mystery: “How did my precious angel become such an asshole?” Whether he or she is possessed, the spawn of Satan, or actually a homicidal dwarf, the film typically takes its time to unspool the enigma of the demon child. The Prodigy, director Nicholas McCarthy’s new bad-seed horror film, is a fairly predictable tale that telegraphs its plot, but not necessarily its scares.
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