The Paperboy - Mörderische Unschuld

Marc Marut is convincingly creepy as the young (13 or 14-year-old) paperboy who has a crush/mother fixation. The kid is eerie, especially when he gets excited and his voice squeaks. The movie is interesting and moves along pretty well yet, for this genre, it's standard fare; nothing exceptional.

I might have rated it higher had it not contained yet another example of Hollywood's prejudice against Christianity. Here again we get the message that the kid was nuts because his "strict, religious" mother made him that way. That has become a standard film cliché to explain insanity. Other than that, there was little offensive material, including language.

This Canadian made thriller/horror with a budget of two million dollars was incredibly filmed in just over 3 weeks and you'd never tell.

Around the mid nineties there seemed to be a trend of such movies about psychotic childrem such as Macaulay Culkin/Elijah Woods The Good Son (1993) and Mikey (1992). They tended to be passable affairs but the moment any tried to be anything beyond psychological they lost credibility.

Here we see a paper boy (Shocker) besotted with a young mother and does everything in his power to become part of her life, even if it means taking out those who stand in his way.

The actor playing the kid never went on to bigger and better things and that is a shame as he is excellent here. Also starring Alexandra "Baywatch" Paul and William "One of my personal favorite actors" Katt alongside industry veteran the late great Frances Bay. The cast truly do make a movie that on paper should have been mediocre into something relatively watchable.

Sure it's predictible and some moments are more than slightly far fetched, but it's watchable stuff for what it is.

The Good:

Stellar cast

Competent antagonist

The Bad:

Seen it before

Some moments are a tad silly

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

This is reason no.534755378334890 why I've not had kids

Baywatch both started and killed Alexandra Pauls career

An average almost "okay" thriller about a depraved/perverted young boy (Johnny) that is obsessed with a hot single mother. In order to get her love, Johnny makes friends with her young daughter, kills her mother, kills his own father!, an old lady that knows about his past, and tries to kill's her boyfriend. What a disgusting guy but at least he can say he tried EVERYTHING to have a real family.

We learn that Johnny is an abused child and that he needs help desperately after being suspect of his mother's death. So we have character development unlike other movies like this. The dialogs aren't the most clever I must say but still work for this movie.

If you enjoy movies where the "villain" or killer is a boy, then "Paperboy" is a must see for you. The actor who plays Johnny is very good in his role and manages to make the audience hate him! He's annoying, a liar, pervert, and you end up hating him. Good job. In fact, it's the kind of movie that makes you feel good when things go wrong to the bad guy.

I'm disturbed by one scene in particular, i don't know if it was edited for t.v. but , does Johnny masturbates after hearing that Alexandra Paul's character is about to have sex with her boyfriend? I didn't understand the scene very well but one thing for sure is that Johnny is a very sick boy.

Oh give this movie a try if you're an avid lover of B-thrillers. "The Paperboy" delivers expectations but I would wait for it to air on t.v. or cable instead of wasting money on it's rental price.

Sigh...memories of long summer days in which my sister and I did little more than watch the USA network. While doing so we tripped over this pathetic little blunder of a movie, and have since peppered our conversations with comments such as "God hates stupid children!" and "Hey Peaches, want some ribs?"

Characters are as follows: Johnny McFarley, the homicidal paperboy, Melissa, the completely oblivious object of his desire, and Cammie, Melissa's brainless little girl. There is also the witchy old woman from down the street, who spends about half of her scenes cackling, "He's eeeeevil!" in reference to Johnny.

In short, the movie is dumb. It's contrived. No one I've talked to has ever seen it, which is a pity because it's so humorously bad.

At least that's what this movie seemed like to me. Now, don't get me wrong, the flick was passable, but it lacked the bone-chilling punch expected from a thriller or horror film. It felt more like a whimsical nod to the evil child genre, akin to a playful riff on evil child thrillers such as "The Good Son, "The Bad Seed" and "Children of the Corn."The evil kid in this movie appeared as though plucked from a '50s sitcom and unceremoniously dropped into the '90s. He even sported some those vibes associated with classic sitcom characters like Eddie Haskell of Leave it go Beaver, greeting the adult protagonist, portrayed by Alexandra Paul (Stephanie Holden from Baywatch), with a touch of the phony, "Hi, Mrs. Cleaver" charm early on. Then he shows her his true psycho self, but even that comes across as more cheesy than menacing. The filmmakers were clearly aiming for this sort of vibe. All in all I would give it 5/10.