the film is littered with jump scares, but most of them offer up shocking twists that land with genuine payoff; "The Prodigy" could stand to stretch its R-rating to even ickier ends, but its psychological surprises are the ones that really stick
children have proved capable of unnerving audiences with a combination of precocious dialogue and psychopathic behavior. The chilling new horror film "The Prodigy" continues that fine tradition, with one intriguing complication
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
a fine little horror-chiller that puts a twist on the usual bad-seed story; Nicholas McCarthy and Jeff Buhler pace the story nicely, building from mild shivers to violent jolts; and Scott is wholly believable as a frightened yet frightening child