Mikey (1992)

This lightweight, cheap “devil child” entry from 1992 is about angelic-looking 9-year-old tot Mikey who is the kid version of what the guy from “The Stepfather” movies was. He is a psycho kid on the prowl for the perfect doting family who will love him and only him until he gets bored of them and moves on to some new victims.

The film starts with cute little Mikey offing his current foster family members by drowning, electrocution and a good old-fashioned bash in the head! Cherubic-looking Mikey blames the ghastly murder on an “intruder” and happily moves on to his next foster home. He strikes luck with a gushing and filthy rich couple trying to be ideal parents and using books to guide their parenting decisions. Mikey appears quite happy in his new home and school even though his class teacher starts to develop serious suspicions about him, having caught him cheating and gradually discovering his past.

Meanwhile, Mikey develops a crush on his classmate’s sister and then turns scornful when he discovers she already has a boyfriend. It doesn’t take long for Mikey to figure out how to achieve his goals, even if a few heads must roll along the way.

The film loses out due to some horribly dull direction and the cast’s cardboard performances, which in turn are the fault of a very inept script. There is some attempted humour, but it comes off almost as dull as the turgid direction. None of the characters is interestingly sketched nor well acted, and the film doesn’t surprise the viewer even once. The death sequences are unimaginatively staged, and in general, there isn’t an iota of visual flair to be seen from start to end. Also, the film doesn’t explain Mikey’s psychosis though child abuse is strongly hinted at.

The film is a forgettable experience had it not been for the attention it managed to grab when it was being released in the UK in the wake of the dreadful Jaime Bulger killing that had taken place in early 1993. Mikey, with its theme of child and a psychotic murderous child who watches videos of his “homemade horrors”, was rather too close to home in a country that had been reeling in horror at successive real-life cases involving children murdering other children as well as a gruesome paedophile network preying on young boys frequenting seedy funfairs. The film remains officially banned in the UK as a direct fallout of the Bulger murder – An unworthy ban perhaps, but the film still seems to exacerbate old wounds in Britain. Give this a miss and watch The Bad Seed again, or The Omen will do quite nicely!

The one amazing thing about Mikey is that the DVD of the film, having gone out of print, was asking price well into the hundreds of dollars upon the last check.