There are a couple moments when it works... [but] I would say go back and watch The Omen or The Bad Seed [instead].

| Sep 18, 2019

Not even an amiable central performance from Taylor Schilling...and some early atmospheric mood-setting can save this "demon child" knock-off from its ineptitude.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 15, 2019

It's an unscary scary movie that quickly abandons the very thing that might have made it interesting...

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 14, 2019

The emotion wasn't quite as earned as it should've been...but, for the majority of the run-time, I was impressed with the craftsmanship on display.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 16, 2019

McCarthy's film dips its toes into some stock scare tactics - the whistling tea kettle, the dark hallway, the creepy basement - while struggling to figure out whether it wants its third act to be a boring or bad-ass sort of bonkers-bananas.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 8, 2019

McCarthy's direction is so sleepy that a number of key scenes fizzle out before they can pay off with the next big jump scare.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 8, 2019

The film is cruelly well-made.

| Feb 8, 2019

The latest in a long, increasingly lousy line of bloodthirsty kid movies...

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 7, 2019

So while it may not reinvent the wheel, it will give you a nice jump or two for the price of a Sunday matinee.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 7, 2019

Director Nicholas McCarthy and screenwriter Jeff Buhler could pen that aforementioned parental handbook for child demonic possession, since they blithely borrow from innumerable evil kid movies.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 7, 2019

[McCarthy] a filmmaker who recognizes that the buildup is more fun than the payoff, and he manages to generate suspense with seemingly little happening on the screen.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 7, 2019

The movie's occasional chills do little to obscure the thin plotting, problematic pacing and a central mystery that's left aggravatingly vague.

| Feb 7, 2019

[A] tense and gripping, persuasively acted horror-thriller that evokes such evil-child flicks as "The Omen," "The Exorcist," "The Bad Seed" and "The Good Son," while carving its own pulse-pounding, if inherently far-fetched niche in the process.

| Feb 7, 2019

A fine little horror-chiller that puts a twist on the usual bad-seed story.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 7, 2019

The filmmakers fail to realize that the darkest horror here doesn't lie in the triumph of true evil, but in seeing how far a regular family will go to protect itself before doing the right and necessary thing.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 6, 2019

While it lacks gripping, nail-biting tension, the unnerving horror that underscores the family drama brings it to life.

| Feb 6, 2019

The filmmakers figure out how to make a creepy kid chilling again, then stop short, closing the case too early.

| Original Score: C+ | Feb 6, 2019

Struggling throughout with issues of structure and pacing, Nicholas McCarthy's horror feature threatens to debase standards for the genre to levels that even undiscriminating thrillseekers seem likely to reject.

| Feb 6, 2019

Tips its hand so early, and provides so very few twists, that the film quickly runs out of material.

| Feb 6, 2019

"The Prodigy" could stand to stretch its R-rating to even ickier ends, but its psychological surprises are the ones that really stick.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 6, 2019