A formulaic thriller too in love with its own intelligence to bother with the lowbrow business of being scary.
Joshua (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:95
Fresh:59
Rotten:36
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: Though Joshua is ultimately too formulaic, its intelligence and suspenseful buildup heighten the overall creep factor.
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby Cairn (Vera Farmiga) seem to have it all. A successful Manhattan couple living in a plush uptown apartment, they have just welcomed their second child into the... Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby Cairn (Vera Farmiga) seem to have it all. A successful Manhattan couple living in a plush uptown apartment, they have just welcomed their second child into the family--a lovely little girl named Lily. Everything should be golden for the happy family, but their little boy--the nine-year-old Joshua (Jacob Kogan)--is less than pleased with the latest addition to the family. An intelligent but odd little boy, Joshua's lack of humor and preoccupation with death belie his tender age, and as the parents coo over Lily, it becomes clear that they are not quite sure what to make of their stone-faced son. When Lily suddenly turns from a quiet baby into one who mysteriously begins wailing day and night, the Cairns' ordered life quickly disintegrates. The lack of sleep and stress takes a heavy toll on the mentally fragile Abby, and Brad begins racing around the city trying to care for his newborn daughter, ailing wife, and emotionally disturbed son. The family stress mounts, and when small animals and the family dog turn up dead, it doesn't take long before fingers begin pointing at the brooding and bizarre Joshua. Vera Farmiga delivers a realistic and disturbing performance as someone tottering at the edge of emotional collapse, and Sam Rockwell is a true pleasure to watch in his turn as a father desperately trying to hold his life together. Using a slow, teasing pace and claustrophobic camera angles, the film strives for a Hitchockian level of suspense while also delivering many topnotch performances. [More]
Starring: Jacob Kogan, Sam Rockwell, Vera Farmiga, Celia Weston
Starring: Jacob Kogan, Sam Rockwell, Vera Farmiga, Celia Weston, Dallas Roberts, Michael McKean
Director: George Ratliff
Director: George Ratliff
Screenwriter: George Ratliff, David Gilbert
Producer: Johnathan Dorfman
Composer: Nico Muhly
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Reviews for Joshua
It's not exactly light summer entertainment. With its emphasis on paranoia and perversion, Joshua is closer in spirit to fringe films like Eraserhead than mainstream horror movies like The Omen.
Uneasily straddling age groups and genres, Joshua is a highly effective family drama cloaked in the stale tropes of the demon-seed thriller.
Overall it delivers some genuine old-school chills -- something that was missing when Macaulay Culkin played a similar role in The Good Son.
A psychological horror film that's a bit light on both the psychology and the horror.
There's no reason Jacob Kogan can't grow into a better actor in the future. Right now, though, he can't anchor this movie with the evil flair it requires, and which might have made it worth seeing.
...the kind of movie that makes you want to yell at the characters: Can't you see what your crazy kid is doing?!?!
It's The Omen without the goofy looking kid or supernatural elements. If you can put up with the glacial pacing the payoff is almost worth the wait, it left me haunted for days.
Despite such creepy moments, the film's fundamental narrative is more wearying than horrifying.
[Director] Ratliff captures an eerily too-realistic vision of hellish New York motherhood
Shows its cards too early and then tells you what they are in case you missed them.
Clever performances and great atmospherics compensate for the gaps in logic.
One of the better entries in the creepy-kid genre, Joshua is a bit like The Omen without the supernaturalism.
A twisty, chilly vision of haute-yuppie parenting as unrelenting nightmare, an ingenious reworking of the demon-seed genre in which the evil child is not the real villain.
Part of the fun of Joshua is the skill with which [director] Ratliff juggles horror and realism, feeding one into the other until we become part of the unraveling of the Cairns’ perfect life.
All of this goes down very, very slowly. Joshua aspires to be a kind of Rosemary's Baby's Older Brother by way of Gaslight, but it lacks the dynamism and atmosphere of either of those inspirations.
It's refreshing to see a horror film based on adult anxieties: The terror of the baby cam can only be overcome by more terror.
A genuinely unsettling film about a sociopathic child...an enjoyably decorous creepshow.
Little Joshua will never haunt our dreams like Damien or the lost child from Don't Look Now.
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