With it clear that Miles must complete the terrible mission himself, The Prodigy abandons what little logic it has left and confoundedly sends Sarah to do the deed, turning the closing 20-plus minutes from a potentially taut finale to a cruel, frustrating dud. You can buy The Prodigy on Apple iTunes, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Redbox as download or rent it on Apple iTunes. Though the family dog naturally knows something’s amiss with Miles from the get-go, as the kiddo starts acting out and uttering a foreign language in his sleep, he finally alarms his mother Sarah (Taylor Schilling, Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black) and laughably underwritten father John (Canadian TV actor Peter Mooney) to the point of taking action.Įnter paranormal psychologist Arthur Jacobson (Colm Feore), who apparently inadvertently lays out the one possible solution for liberating Miles, then takes another approach that doesn’t quite go as he’d planned, but also doesn’t prevent him from aiding Sarah in her attempts to save her son. Playing the preteen child, Jackson Robert Scott (Georgie from It) makes for an impressive creepy kid, but loses points when called upon to be an average boy - doubly so when he gets whiney and turns on the waterworks. Yes, Ellie is a telekinetic (can move objects by force of will alone) and has higher intellect far beyond her years.
Well-made on a technical level - no shaky-cam cheapness here from director Nicholas McCarthy ( The Pact) - the film doles out eerie imagery that wordlessly conveys themes of duplicity and capitalizes on the promise of suspenseful set-ups with multiple creative jump scares.ĭespite its worshipping of The Omen and various bad seed predecessors, the screenplay from Jeff Buhler (he of the inventive Midnight Meat Train) nonetheless appears headed toward something new-ish with the mysterious sinister connection between deceased serial killer Edward Scarka (Paul Fauteux, Netflix’s Frontier) and the titular smarty, Miles. Starring: Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Colm Feore. Prodigy is a great film that focuses on character development, a believable story with good pacing.
A bizarre little failure, The Prodigy initially has the makings of a horror success.