Premise: A young boy who is advanced beyond his years has a malevolent secret inside him.
There's this great episode of House about a sick genius teen who is a grade-A asshole. Like, he even makes House seem kind by comparison. Throughout the episode, you kind of assume that whatever's wrong with him is also affecting his personality. However, it turns out that it's not related. He's just a prick. And that ending is somehow darker than if he had just died.
What I'm trying to say is, why couldn't the kid in The Prodigy just suck? I got annoyed when I realized how many hoops the movie would jump through to avoid making the kid evil. I'm used to this. Demons and devils use children as vessels all the time in horror. The 90's had it right though with non-horror movies like Problem Child and The Good Son. Just make a kid evil.
That's my only thought on this movie. As I learned that the kid was just possessed by a dead serial killer, this got a lot less interesting. It absolved Taylor Schilling of any nature vs. nurture questions. It makes all of the kid's actions less menacing. And having such a bizarre explanation without it being a demonic possession feels less plausible.
Remember how cool it was in The Ring when you find out that Naomi Watts wasn't supposed to help Samara? Chase that feeling more.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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