Joshua – Sam Rockwell Has a Psycho Kid

Joshua is a 2007 psychological thriller about a normal Manhattan family that begins to come apart due to the psychotic behavior of their son Joshua. The film stars Sam Rockwell, star of such films as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Matchstick Men (opposite Nicholas Cage), and the George Clooney directed Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. The film is directed by George Ratliff and is written by himself and first-time writer David Gilbert. Joshua hit US theaters on July 6, 2007.

Sam Rockwell plays Brad Caim, father of the Manhattan-based Caim family, which includes his wife Abby (Vera Farmiga – The Manchurain Candidate, The Departed), his 9-year-old son Joshua, and his newborn baby daughter.

Joshua is frighteningly intelligent, to the point where he thinks like a 19-year-old. All is seemingly well with the Caim family, until that fateful day when Abby brings home Joshua’s baby sister and his world starts to unravel. He becomes increasingly more psychotic and things quickly spiral out of control.

Fans of movies like The Good Son, which starred a 12-year-old Elijah Wood at the beginning of his career and a 13-year-old Macaulay Culkin at what was arguably the peak of his career, will probably do flips at the thought of this upcoming horror, which looks like it takes the disturbing subject matter of the Good Son and kicks it into overdrive.

Although I’ve only seen a small portion of his work, I’m a huge fan of Sam Rockwell. As cliché as it sounds, he brings a genuine “everyman” feel to his roles that makes him surprisingly easy to relate to. Jacob Kogan, the young’un who portrays Joshua Caim, has only one other credit to his name: the twisted Wonder Showzen, a show that parodies all of the classic PBS shows of the seventies.

Check out the trailer for Joshua and decide for yourself just how creepy this kid is: