Movie Review--The Prodigy

"Sometimes I leave my body when I'm lying in bed."
--Miles, The Prodigy

"Mommy?  Will you always love me, no matter what I do?"
--Miles, The Prodigy


Despite having a largely predictable and formulaic script, The Prodigy is a very competent film kept afloat by its performances and by its somewhat unique approach to its horror subgenre.  The first five to seven minutes openly reveal what many of the characters take far longer to realize: young Miles is not possessed by a demon, but is indwelt by the reincarnated consciousness of a serial killer.  The Prodigy is what results from merging the soul transference concept from the opening scene of the original Child's Play and the narrative of a standard demonic possession film.

Though the use of reincarnation differentiates it from many other possession movies, giving an alternate reason to revisit familiar plot points, the overall trajectory of the script brings nothing new to the horror genre.  This doesn't mean that there are no particular scenes of quality, only that there is nothing that has not been done before in some way.  Even so, two things stand out as noteworthy: the exploration of reincarnation from a Western mother's perspective, and the tortured relationship between a child terrified by his own possession and a mother willing to commit an atrocity to save her son.


Production Values

Despite there being little to no character development inherent in the script, the performances of The Prodigy hold the film together.  Jackson Robert Scott, whom some viewers may recognize as Georgie from 2017's It, plays Miles Blume, a sensitive and abnormally intelligent child who struggles as he shares a body with the mind of a sadistic murderer.  The task of playing what amounts to two different characters falls on him, and he does not disappoint.  Although we don't see the serial killer himself very often after the opening, Paul Fauteux handles his comparatively minor (as in sparsely used) role of Edward Scarka well whenever the physical presence of Scarka is needed.

Taylor Schilling plays Sarah Blume, the mother of Miles, in a way that elevates a character who is mostly generic in function--up until the end.  She gets the opportunity to confront a rather dark ethical decision near the finale.  The film is at its best when the actual Miles yearns for the love of his mother, who ultimately is willing to love him despite the circumstances, even to the point of almost carrying out a deeply unjust deed in order to save him.  As for the secondary cast members, no one is lacking in the quality of their acting, though Miles' father and a reincarnation specialist character aren't given much to work with.


Story

Spoilers!

In Ohio, a woman named Margaret St. James escapes from kidnapper and serial killer Edward Scarka, alerting the police to his whereabouts.  Edward had cut off one of her hands: his MO involves removing a hand from each of his victims before he kills them.  As a SWAT team approaches his place of residence, a woman named Sarah Blume prepares to give birth elsewhere.  Scarka is shot to death.  However, as baby Miles is born to Sarah, he shows the same heterochromia that Scarka had.

By the time he is eight years old, Miles displays a level of intelligence unnatural for someone of his age, an ability to speak in Hungarian, and knowledge of private extended family issues that occurred before he was born.  Sarah consults a reincarnation researcher, who is able to communicate with the spirit of Scarka only to be threatened into pretending like Miles is not being indwelt.  After this, Miles' parents discover that he has been spying on them with a camera and that he killed the family dog and cut off one of its paws, concluding that he is too dangerous to keep at home.

Miles thwarts an attempt to bring him to a secure facility, at which point Sarah, having already been told by the reincarnation researcher about Edward Scarka, learns that Scarka plans to kill the woman who escaped from him.  Coming close to killing Margaret herself in order to free her son, Sarah witnesses Miles kill Margaret.  She then follows him to a nearby farmland, where Scarka claims that he has permanently extinguished Miles' own consciousness, leaving himself in full control of the body.  A farmer shoots Sarah when she aims a gun at Miles, who is brought to foster parents.


Intellectual Content

Reincarnation is not a typical plot element in mainstream movies, and I admire the efforts of the director and writer to incorporate something nontraditional into their film.  As the characters begin to recognize that Miles' body is being held hostage by a reincarnated soul, discussions about potential evidence for reincarnation occur.  The only possible evidence for reincarnation that could exist is someone having awareness of special information related to historical, geographical, or personal matters that standard human limitations would prevent someone from learning.  Of course, epistemology is not always so simple; merely having such information does not prove reincarnation any more than memories of past events prove that those exact events happened.  Nevertheless, Westerners are not always very familiar with actual philosophies that posit reincarnation, and The Prodigy integrates the concept into its narrative in a very natural way.


Conclusion

The Prodigy might not be particularly original in terms of overall plot scructure, but its execution still manages to make the most of its script.  It is far from a bad movie.  In fact, it has many praiseworthy aspects; it is simply a movie that might seem very familiar to horror fans who have viewed many of the genre's offerings.  There are certainly narrative decisions that somewhat distinguish The Prodigy from other films of its type, but they cannot make the rest of the movie any more novel.


Content:
1. Violence:  Most of the movie focuses on drama over physical violence.  Still, at the beginning of the movie, a woman shows that her hand has been cut off.  Miles' possessed body butchers a woman with a knife.
2. Profanity:  Miles utters the word "fuck" to his mother while inhabited by a serial killer's consciousness.
3. Nudity:  In the opening, serial killer Edward Scarka walks out of a building fully nude before he is shot.  Miles is shown completely naked onscreen shortly after his birth.