Parents' Guide to The Prodigy

Clever direction and moody, effective cinematography can't quite rescue this horror movie from some confounding clichés. The Prodigy leads viewers to believe that it's going to rise above the genre when the adults figure out pretty early on that something very wrong is happening. But, nope. They proceed to make pretty much every possible bad choice to enable the horror to roll right along. That's a real issue when the gag isn't particularly original to begin with: This film fits neatly into the Bad Seed horror subgenre, along with The Omen, The Good Son, Orphan, and many others, albeit with its own slight wrinkles. But to say those bells and whistles make it original would be to give sole credit to Vanilla Ice for "Under Pressure."

The film isn't terrible. Director Nicholas McCarthy and cinematographer Bridger Nielson have worked together frequently, and it shows. There's a seamlessness to the use of imagery to set tone and convey information. The opening sequence, for instance, could be said to reveal too much, leaving audiences to sit and wait for the evil to emerge in the kid. But the way it's presented, with some thoughtful matching of images, shows promise. The movie's atmospheres are suitably foreboding and draped in poisonous shadows. And the performances are solid throughout: Schilling and Mooney are believable as a couple facing something unimaginable, and young Scott is outstanding in the most demanding role. But the characters' terrible decisions seem nakedly required for plot purposes, crippling any hope for tension or surprise. The movie also relies too heavily on startle scares. It does go to darker places than usual for most horror movies, but even that isn't new or different -- at least, not enough to make The Prodigy especially memorable.