Search - Joshua (2007) on DVD

You wouldn't want to have kids after watching this.

hbueain | NY, USA | 09/06/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Very similar to the movie Omen, which you want to just squeeze the kid. NOT Entertaining, but a film to show someone so they don't have kids."

Damien with a pinch of Rosemary's Baby

Mitchell Cassman | BUFFALO GROVE, IL United States | 02/05/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"JOSHUA is the tale of Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby (Vera Farmiga) Cairn, perfect Manhattan parents in a perfect Manhattan apartment whose perfect life begins to crack after the birth of their second child Lily. Shortly after Lily arrives home, a dark side of prodigy son Joshua slowly begins to reveal itself.

A couple of Manhattan yuppies are expecting their second child. Their first child doesn't react to well to the presence of baby sister - in fact he goes Damien on the entire family.

Brad Cairn (Sam Rockwell) is a young stockbroker and seems to be in the money since the family lives in a nice Manhattan apartment. His wife Abby (Vera Farmiga) is expecting their second child and give birth to a little girl. The Cairn's already have a son named Joshua (Jacob Kogan).

He appears to be an extremely intelligent and attends a private school where he wears a blazer and a tie as a uniform. He also plays piano with his favorite Ned (Dallas Roberts). His mother is not having a good time with the birth of child number two and seems to be having postpartum depression. Brad is busy trying to get some big deals at work so he doesn't seem to notice at first that Joshua is acting strangely to the arrival of his little sister. In fact, he seems to be making some sort of devious plans for baby sister and also using mom's depression to his advantage (and even accentuates it).

Suddenly dad begins to have to handle mom's increasing insanity and starts notice that Joshua has plans that he's working on behind the scenes - and they're not plans that will have a happy ending.

Joshua definitely brings to mind another demonic lad - Damien from Omen (with a pinch of Rosemary's Baby thrown in for good measure). In fact, the cover basically screams that. However this naughty boy doesn't have an evil, supernatural entity that fathered him. What we do have is an intelligent boy but he's also cunning and appears to be without conscious.

Young Jacob Kogan does a decent job at portraying the role, but the adults also have been well cast as well. Sam Rockwell is more know for his comedic roles but he does well as the harried father who has to deal with his wife's depression and then learns that his young son is plotting something devious.

Vera Farmiga is also good, but has to lose her mind and this can be a bit grating, as we want her to come out of her funk. What doesn't really jibe is the reason behind his devilish ways. It doesn't really have the payoff that we might expect, but in a child's size view of the world it might make perfect sense.

If you're looking for a good horror film, this isn't it. It's a decent piece of film making from a documentary film maker.

Special features include a commentary by director George Ratliff and writer David Gilbert.

Next are 12 minutes of cast and crew interviews, 5 minutes from the Internet advertising campaign, the 3 minute audition by Kogan, the 3 minute "Fly" music video by Dave Matthews, 6 minutes of deleted scenes, and the 2 minute theatrical trailer.
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