Evil kid movies have a long history going back to “The Bad Seed,” first shown on screens in 1956. That lineage runs straight through 1976’s “The Omen,” where the trope goes biblical. I fondly recall Macaulay Culkin’s turn as the archetype in 1993’s “The Good Son.” And there’s what is possibly my favorite film, “Orphan.” (Though that one’s status as an evil kid movie is… complicated. IYKYK.)
Why does this narrative have so much life? I think because we all correctly assume that most children are, at their roots, unredeemably evil.
Does 2007’s “Joshua” fall into this pedigree?
Yes, and quite ably so.
But it’s a different kind of evil kid movie. It’s like an evil kid movie if Noah Baumbach or PT Anderson made evil kid movies. It operates with a cultured sophistication you don’t associate with these films.
The premise: Nine-year-old Joshua and his parents are living in an expensive New York apartment when his mother gives birth to a baby girl. Instantly, the parent’s attention is on the infant, leaving their son to tend to himself. And you get the impression things were this way even before the new arrival.
But Joshua does have one close relative—his uncle, played by Dallas Roberts, who happens to look like the love child of Val Kilmer and John Ritter.
Does Joshua resent his parents’ coolness? Maybe. And we have further reasons for suspicion once strange things start happening.
Per the formula of these movies, events slowly escalate. And yet, at least half the time, you think you’re watching a kind of Woody Allen-influenced New York family drama. It’s a weird, yet very deliberate choice. And for me, it worked.
The soundtrack in particular demonstrates this schism. Half the score is maudlin, jazzy noodling. But the terror scenes are jagged slices of dissonance.
The father is played by Sam Rockwell, who I’ve long felt is vastly underrated. (Run right out and watch “Matchstick Men” if you haven’t already.) And the actor playing Joshua, Jacob Kogan, is a real talent, though it seems like he has left acting.
The ending is a bit of a head-scratcher, but makes sense when you realize black humor has been driving the film the whole time.
Best Line: Do you still love me, Daddy?
