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371:, causing him to run away. Later in the evening, Brad is laying with Lily on his bed lulling her to sleep. Brad then hears Joshua crying, and finds him hiding in the kitchen begging Brad not to send him away. Joshua refuses to crawl out of his hiding place so Brad pulls him out, and Joshua cries out in pain. Brad then discovers a bruise on Joshua's back. Brad asks Joshua who gave him the bruise, but all Joshua says is that he slipped.
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wrote: "None of this would have worked without the ideal child, and Kogan, making his movie debut, gets a difficult role down perfectly. Ratliff avoids turning him into a typical bad seed, and shows the same restraint at nearly every turn. With deliberate pacing, well-placed scares, and a pitch-black
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The next morning, while going for a walk with Brad and Lily, Joshua steals her pacifier, causing her to cry. When Brad confronts him, Joshua begins to mock him, causing him to strike Joshua. Brad tries to apologize but Joshua further taunts him, driving Brad to beat his son in public, strengthening
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Joshua gravitates toward his uncle Ned as a close friend, but distances himself from his parents, particularly following the birth of his sister Lily. As the days pass, the house regresses from healthy and happy to strange and disorienting. As the baby's whines drive an already strained Abby to the
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gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, writing: "Ratliff and co-screenwriter David
Gilbert are clearly aiming for the highbrow suspense market rather than the down-and-dirty horror crowd, but their script's obviousness strips the story of suspense and turns it into a tedious slog to a predestined end."
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Ned later sits with Joshua at the piano, and the two compose a song. Joshua sings about how his parents will never be loved by anyone now, and that he only wanted to be with Ned and got rid of everyone else. It is through this that Ned finally realizes what Joshua has done and looks at him with a
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God of Chaos. At home, Brad watches a videotape of Joshua making Lily cry on purpose, realizing that Joshua is the one who has been making Lily cry incessantly at night. He goes to the museum and sees Joshua attempt to push Lily down a flight of stairs. Joshua stops when he is caught by Hazel but
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wrote: "Two things: the audience is ahead of the movie, and the movie never catches up. In the first scene we look at the kid, we look at the family and we get it. We get all there is to get. A strangely composed boy sits in his suit and tie, banging away at a
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Joshua's case of abuse and sending Brad to jail for assault. Joshua also frames his father for tampering with Abby's medications, suggesting that Brad will spend the rest of his life in prison, leaving Ned to adopt Joshua and Lily.
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proceeds to push her instead, killing her and disguising it as an accident. Brad confides in Ned that he thinks Joshua did it but Ned does not believe him. Meanwhile, Abby has a psychotic breakdown and is institutionalized.
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The film made $ 53,233 in its opening weekend from 6 screens, averaging $ 8,538 per theater. It made $ 482,355 domestically in the United States, and $ 237,613 in other territories for a total worldwide gross of $ 719,968.
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said that the film is "something vitally new... that has a cool and savvy fun with your fears" — he also noted that it is "a superbly crafted psychological thriller". Elizabeth
Weitzman of
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That night, Brad installs a lock on his bedroom door and tells Joshua that Lily will be sleeping with him, fearing he will attempt to do something to her. He also brings Betsy, a
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Joshua kills the family's dog, but says he does not know what happened. Unable to feel sadness, he imitates Brad's grief. He next causes a fight between his mother (who is
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The film was directed by George
Ratliff, who co-wrote the screenplay with David Gilbert. It was produced by Johnathan Dorfman and ATO Pictures, and was distributed
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piano piece for a school recital, while his parents ooh and aah over their newborn daughter. Joshua is a very bad kid, and he is going to do very bad things."
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Seeing that Abby is getting worse, Brad takes two weeks off from his job to look after her and the children. When he arrives home, Joshua has gone to the
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Brad and Abby Cairn are an affluent New York couple with two children. Their firstborn, a self-decided conservatively dressed 9-year-old, Joshua, is a
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the film has an average rating of 62%, based on 99 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's consensus reads, "Though
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is ultimately too formulaic, its intelligence and suspenseful buildup heighten the overall creep factor." On
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said that the film was a brilliant house-of-horror tale with
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and was released on July 6, 2007, in the United States by
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co-written and directed by George
Ratliff. The film stars
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Joshua) when he tells his parents he wants to become a
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309:on the piano and thinks and acts like an adult.
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84:Vera Farmiga
79:Sam Rockwell
813:October 26,
780:October 26,
663:December 7,
510:Jacob Kogan
426:Nancy Giles
402:Jacob Kogan
315:sociopathic
281:Jacob Kogan
226:106 minutes
89:Jacob Kogan
64:Produced by
39:Directed by
962:2007 films
956:Categories
920:Metacritic
874:2021-12-30
745:2021-12-12
711:Metacritic
616:References
552:Metacritic
529:Box office
514:Nico Muhly
247:Box office
209:2007-07-06
177:2007-01-24
142:Production
135:Nico Muhly
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524:Reception
502:Beethoven
338:Christian
250:$ 719,968
123:Edited by
947:AllMovie
846:June 12,
835:TV Guide
734:"Joshua"
717:June 12,
690:June 12,
593:TV Guide
353:Egyptian
239:Language
193:Sundance
185:Sundance
131:Music by
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567:flair.
467:Release
242:English
231:Country
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365:abused
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287:Joshua
258:Joshua
22:Joshua
497:Music
898:IMDb
848:2016
815:2014
782:2014
719:2016
692:2016
665:2022
475:and
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349:Seth
301:Plot
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