Director: Nicholas McCarthy
Year: 2019
Country: USA/Canada
Alternate Titles: Descendant
Genre: Evil Kids
Plot:
Following the birth of their son, a couple are overjoyed when they find out he's supposedly a genius child, but once they are witness to strange events and interactions with other kids they slowly come to believe his stories are due to the reincarnated spirit inhabiting him and try to stop it.
Review:
For the most part, this one was exceptionally routine and predictable. What really tends to work nicely here is the expected scenes of the kid snapping and committing all the strange incidents. The early scenes of the couple discovering the true nature of his condition starts up the first half rather nicely, effectively giving this the perfect lead-in to the overall discovery of the kid. The verbal threats he utters against the mother, speaking in unusual tongues, the interviews done with the social workers and the interaction he has with the other kids all start rolling this along and prepares this one for the big finale where the action and intensity picks up considerably due to the evil child getting into more creepiness with his actions. There's some fun to be had with that aspect of the film.
That said, there are still many flaws within here. The biggest issue to be had is the fact that there's not much in the way of detailing anything original in the setup featured here. The formula of the gifted child who's just a bit too different to be normal but nobody else is capable of seeing that due to the innocence of the child doing it that has everyone fooled just seems to be so rudimentary and expected that it's really not shocking once he snaps and goes crazy. With a vast majority of these scenes coming about due to the wholly expected trope as the carelessness of the parents to ignore everything that's going on around them and deny everything that he's doing simply because he's their son, this formula is exceptionally apparent throughout here with very little exceptions.
The other problem here is the rather bland and non-horror first hour that really has so little to actually evoke scares or suspense. Since this is all based around the growing concerns of his behavior and the realization of his current state before focusing on the road to get revenge, the setup here doesn't really generate any kind of scares or shocking moments at all beyond the concept of what the kid is doing. There's vague threats and some imposing actions towards others, none of the scares here really generate any kind of shocks or suspense leading up to the eventual revelation. This ends up offering a rather bland experience with no jump-scares and far too much reliance on the potential for something to happen yet never ends up going there as it forces plenty of expected behaviors from it. These here are what end up doing the most damage against this one.
Overview: *1/2/5
An incredibly predictable and troublesome genre effort, this one plays out pretty much like most other evil kid films without much deviation in it, resulting in a generally lackluster effort without a whole lot to really raise it above the norm in the genre. Give it a shot if you're into the mainstream style efforts or curious about it, while those looking for something harder than this should seek extreme caution.
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