I love surprises (hint, hint for my birthday this year), and I love them even more when they’re a neatly wrapped horror movie with a giant black bow on top.  The recent film The Prodigy was indeed a surprise for me.  The typical ‘go in with low expectations’ kind of thing, where you leave the theater saying “Well, that was way better than I thought it would be“.  Yes, it’s another in a long….long….long line of creepy kid movies – but I dug it.  

And now……Here are 5 reasons why The Prodigy gave me a horror boner (slight spoilers ahead btw):

1.  That hallway jump scare

It takes a lot for me to yell out “Oh Shit!” in a movie theater, especially for a horror movie. The Prodigy gave me, what could be, one of my favorite jump scares in a loooooong time.  I won’t spoil it too much, but when it comes – you’ll know.  There’s also another creepy scene involving a ‘face reveal’ that made me shudder.  Kudos for that.

2.  The hypnosis scene 

At a point in the movie – Miles (Jackson Robert Scott) is taken to a doctor by his mother Sarah (Taylor Schilling), to try hypnosis so they can hopefully get rid of what’s wrong with him (I’m tiptoeing here to not give too much away).  What follows is an unnerving, and somewhat gross, exchange between Miles and the doctor.  I could have done without the close up of Miles’ teeth while he’s talking, but that only made the scene that much more effective.

3.  The acting of Jackson Robert Scott

It took me a minute to realize that Miles was Georgie from the IT remake!  Meaning that actor Jackson Robert Scott played them both of course.  Without his performance as Miles, the film probably doesn’t have the some impact.  He walked the line well between being innocent and terrifying, which is the most you can ask for from an actor playing an ‘evil child’.

4.  The score from Joseph Bishara 

Joseph Bishara is a staple in the ‘horror movie score’ game, most notably for the Insidious franchise.  Here in The Prodigy, he evokes the mood from a lot of 70’s horror movies (clarinets and horns all up in there) and added a lot to the overall dark mood of the entire movie.  There’s even a ridiculously cool release of the soundtrack on vinyl from Waxwork Records that glows in UV light!  Pick it up HERE if you dare.

5.  It’s not afraid to be mean-spirited

Too often times in Hollywood horror movies, the filmmakers will choose to go the safe route – especially when it comes to the ending.  So it’s uber refreshing that The Prodigy throws that safe crap out the window and gives us ominous twists and turns in the film’s climax.  I applaud any movie that ‘swings for the fences’, especially when it’s a horror movie.  I can see that the ending will divide viewers though, but for me – it was as satisfying as Taco Bell after a night of heavy drinking.

My only request after watching The Prodigy is please don’t do a sequel.  Leave it be and let this one breathe.  Is it a perfect horror movie?  No.  But as I said at the beginning of the post, it was a nice surprise and it’s refreshing to see a mainstream horror movie that’s not afraid to go against the grain.  Yes, it borrows from other horror movies (would you rather see another remake?) – but I have no problem with that if in the end, you end up with a horror boner.  Horror boners…..they’re all the rage nowadays!