THE PRODIGY

THE PRODIGY is a horror movie about a mother and father’s struggle to figure out why their son demonstrates dark, demonic behavior. The movie has a solid script, and heightened suspense moves the story along nicely. However, the movie’s overall tone is horrific and disturbing. In the end, evil wins, making this a movie fit for only those misguided souls who like to see evil triumph.

The movie opens with a flashback to a creepy, older man (Edward) working in a dark shed. It cuts away to the shot of a young girl with a missing, bloody hand running away from his shed. A sensor goes off in the man’s shed, and he notices someone is outside. He pops out his window and sees the FBI surrounding his place with guns. He runs down to the dark hole in his basement and sees that the backdoor is open. His victim escaped! He screams loudly and grabs a gun. The man comes outside, butt naked with a gun, but the FBI shoots him and he dies.

Flash forward years later. The scene opens up to a young married couple giving birth to their son. The same day Edward died, Miles is born into the world. As Miles grows up, his parents learn he’s a gifted child and they are advised to place him into a school for children with heightened intelligence. Miles is an unusual boy, with one brown and one blue eye. However, he has trouble making friends and can’t connect with children his age. When he turns 8-years-old, he begins to say strange things in his dreams. One night, his mother records him and saves it.

Back at school, Miles is told he can’t work on a science project with a little girl he likes, and he goes berserk. He finds a wrench in the closet and hits the little boy that got to work with the girl he wanted to until the boy’s unconscious.

Sarah, Mile’s mother, takes him to a therapist where they try to determine what motivated Miles to hit the boy. Sarah gives the therapist the tape recorder of the strange jibberish he spoke in his dreams, hoping it may be a clue to why this happened. A few days later the therapist asks Sarah to come meet her friend, Dr. Jacobson, who specializes in researching reincarnation. He tells Sarah a dark, person from a past life has taken over Miles’ body, and Miles will not stop walking with darkness until the soul inside of him gets what they want out of this life. Sarah and her husband decide the reincarnation stuff is fake and don’t do anything about it. The next week, Mile’s kills their precious dog and stabs his father with a knife. Sarah takes him back to Dr. Jacobson to get his help.

Jacobson hypnotizes Miles and finds out Edward, a former mass murderer from Ohio, has taken over his body. Edward’s signature killer move was chopping off the right hand of all victims, which explains why Miles draws women’s hands all the time. Dr. Jacobson tells Sarah the soul won’t die until he gets what he wants on earth. Sarah learns Edward wants his last victim, the girl with the one hand that escaped from him, dead. Sarah must now choose. Will she find this woman and murder her for the sake of her son or will she have to send her son away to be locked up?

THE PRODIGY is simply put: terrifying. The script and story flow well. The acting, led by Taylor Schilling from TV’s ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, is good, but the movie is extremely dark and demonic. It says that dead people, demons and evil spirits can take over our souls, and the only way to get rid of them is to obey them. There are no references to God, the Bible, church, or prayer. THE PRODIGY also contains heavy gore, bloodshed, mass murder, excessive foul language, and an occult worldview with references to reincarnation. Finally, the ending is depressing. THE PRODIGY isn’t suitable for young people or media-wise viewers.