By Drake Vittitow
Staff reporter

Horror movies are the ragdoll of the film industry. A unique idea gets hammered by different directors until the idea is watered down and beaten to death, thus killing the freshness of said topic.

Think about all of the slasher and possession movies that you have seen. Have you really seen more than 10 horror movies that have been a fresh start to the franchise?

Sadly, “The Prodigy” is rotten with the stereotypical stench that plagues most horror movies.

Two young parents give birth to a child who is intelligent, but does some seriously shady things that makes them think he might be possessed. After several discussions with psychologists, it is determined that his current soul may be overtaken by a more powerful and evil soul and the only way to stop it is to extract the soul through a ritual.

Sound familiar?

“The Prodigy” attempts to try something different than the usual possession movie. It draws inspiration from the Hindi’s belief of reincarnation.

Reincarnation is a single soul passing from a dead host to another living body. This idea is the selling point of the movie, but other than that one minor difference, it falls flat in almost every other category.

The one positive came from the cast. Golden Globe and Emmy nominee, Taylor Schilling, and Jackson Robert Scott (It: Chapter One) deliver riveting performances that make the viewer think they actually believe in the movie and not just phoning in the performances for money.

Scott is so devilish in the movie it will make you think twice before deciding if you want to have kids or not.

But other than the performances, the movie feels like another horror movie that belongs in the sellout pile. The movie relies heavily upon quick camera cuts and jump scares to get the viewer out of their seats, and even then, there are only a handful of those moments.

There is nothing in the movie that is surprising or unexpected. It feels like a train ride aboard Cliché Express and it never stops until the movie is over.

All of this culminates into a third act that makes you ask yourself if this movie was even worth the admission. The lowest point of the movie comes in the final scene when it attempts to steal the ending from a much more iconic horror film and it does not succeed whatsoever.

With the movie already being bad, its attempt to redeem itself by stealing an ending is not an ideal way to win fans, especially die-hard horror fans, over.

With a slightly altered story that has overstayed its welcome, “The Prodigy” attempts to be something different, but comes up very short of the mark. Other than the excellent performances by the cast, it struggles to stay afloat by throwing cheap scares at the audience that aren’t even scary.

With the third act being the pinnacle of predictability, “The Prodigy” is a film that tried to be different, but ended up being a copy of some age-old ideas that were popular years ago.

Drake Vittitow is a freshman majoring in communication. You may email him at