The prodigy 2019
Unfortunately, The Prodigy isn’t scary, good or fun and that made for an underwhelming experience.
#THE PRODIGY 2019 MOVIE#
Generally one of three things will make the movie good enough and lead it to enough money to be deemed a success.
Success is really a low bar for these types of movies. The Prodigy is another movie looking to capitalize off this formula and was released between two other movies looking to do the same thing, Escape Room and Happy Death Day 2U. Soon enough a major piece of the formula will no longer be applicable because there will be far too much competition in the form of a similar style movies. Don’t get me wrong, this is a tried and true formula that has brought about a lot of financial success, so much so that we are seeing more and more of these films each year. But that doesn't make it any less wrong.The early year, low-budget horror movie is starting to become too trendy for its own good. "The Prodigy" wasn't made by incompetent filmmakers. They wind him up, and expect viewers to be impressed, because hey, Violent Children are creepy! Unfortunately, the film's scare scenes aren't even well-executed: an ostensibly creepy walk down a dark stairway appears to take a lifetime before it climaxes with the most obvious jump scare imaginable. So if there's something wrong with Miles, it's that his creators don't do much with him. It's all barely simmering on the film's surface because "The Prodigy" mostly follows Miles as he pointlessly terrorizes other forgettable characters. Buhler and McCarthy rely so much on the familiarity of their scenario that they never bother to explain why Sarah immediately accepts the judgment of Feore's hypnotist, or how, exactly, was John affected by childhood abuse (we can guess, but you get what I mean). Sarah and John are also poorly developed characters. These guys don't just make generic bad decisions, like wandering into the wrong dark room, or participating in a staring contest with the wrong possessed child. Sarah and her emotionally distant husband John ( Peter Mooney) are not only boring to watch, but also boring to think about. I also tried to ignore all the little tropes and jump scares that Buhler and McCarthy took from earlier horror films, and often blatantly, as in almost shot-for-shot nods to lesser-known films, like Mario Bava's "Shock" and Damiano Damiani's " Amityville II: The Possession." I tried to focus on what I was looking at on a moment-to-moment basis, just so I could suspend my disbelief long enough to invest in these types of characters again. And honestly, I did try to love this movie, having previously enjoyed films by both Buhler and McCarthy. I appreciate that, but I must re-assure viewers: there is nothing to "The Prodigy" beyond what I just outlined to you. Why bother? We all know that the fights are rigged and the wrestlers are actors. I realize that outlining this type of film's plot is like ragging on the apparently scripted nature of pro-wrestling matches. You probably know this formula, even if you haven't thought of it as such: Young Mother gives birth to Violent Child Kind Doctors find early signs of concern for Violent Child, but re-assure Young Mother that there's nothing to worry about yet Violent Child begins to act squirrelly Young Mother is worried enough to consult with Well-Meaning Spiritualist ( Colm Feore), who tells Young Mother that Violent Child has become a vessel for Big Evil Young Mother doesn't believe Well-Meaning Spiritualist until more Bad Stuff happens then Young Mother takes matters into her own hands, by which time it may or may not be already too late to help Violent Child. You'd be wrong, by the way, since "The Prodigy" is a horror movie that sticks closely to the post-"The Omen" formula for Evil Kid Flicks. Then again, you might also think that Miles looks normal enough, right until he starts cursing out Sarah in Hungarian, attacking another kid with a pipe wrench, and doing unpleasant things with the family dog. Miles appears to be somewhere on the autism spectrum, based on the way that he skittishly interacts with his understandably worried mother Sarah ( Taylor Schilling). Realistically, it's pretty hard to tell what's wrong with Miles because Buhler doesn't spell it out.
Also deadly: Miles ( Jackson Robert Scott), an eight year-old wunderkind who, we are told, is super-smart in some unspecified areas, but also developmentally delayed in other unclear ways.