The Prodigy

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

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

"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."

"[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."

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

"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."