The Prodigy is a new horror film directed by Nicholas McCarthy, the director of The Pact, Home and Holidays.
In the film, Sarah (Taylor Schilling) has just received her first child. Her son Miles (Jackson Robert Scott) seems to be a special child from a young age with a clever intelligence and a high pain threshold. Furthermore, Miles also shows strange disturbing behavior.
When she has Miles tested, nothing special comes out of the research results. Only a spiritual researcher assumes that two different souls live in Miles. Miles his own soul and the soul of a reincarnated person who has not yet finished his life on earth. This soul belongs to a malicious man who tries to find and kill his escaped victim. Sarah is faced with a choice to help the evil soul and get her son back or to have her son locked up in a special institution so that the evil soul can not do any damage to the world.
This film is quickly told in a predictable way thanks to the information you get as a viewer at the beginning of the film. They could have left this information better from the beginning and could only tell later in the film. So the only question you can have as a viewer while watching the movie is which soul has control of the body of Miles. Usually the events and actions of the characters quickly give away who has the control.
Due to the predictability of the film, the film soon becomes a bit tedious, because as a viewer you know what to expect. For example, the horror moments in the film are not really scary anymore.
It is not clearly explained how reincarnation has happened in the film. It is simply stated that it is reincarnation without further explanation. The same type of horror story about reincarnation has been used in other horror films as in the Child's Play films. In these films, the soul of a murderer has entered an innocent doll by using a voodoo ritual, in order to create further chaos in the world.
The acting is well done by the protagonists. Jackson Robert Scott delivers good acting in this horror film for a young actor. In the remake of the horror film It also provided good acting as the young Georgie. Taylor Schilling also provides good assault as the mother, who is confronted with the two souls in the body of her son and the choices she is faced with. The acting of the two carries the film. The rest of the cast is not very special in the film. This is mainly because their characters have little more to do.
