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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
beware the paperboy bearing gifts, 4 December 2005
9/10
Author: bigwig_thalyi from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This little known film is one of the best studies in psychological terror that i have seen. An innocent looking paperboy kills an old lady to lure her daughter back from the city because he wants to be a member of her family. It is clear from the beginning that the boy only meant to kill the old lady but the more he tries to ingratiate himself into the family the more deranged he becomes and the more people he has to kill. I had never come across the young actor who played the paperboy before but he gave a performance worthy of an experienced pro and his portrayal of a child descending into madness was inspired. Alexandra Paul ,playing the harassed mother, has never been better and I rate this as her best performance to date. The only really gruesome part of this movie is when a dog gets beaten to death but that was the only real bit of gore in the whole movie.This film proves that you don't have to have sex,bad language and buckets of blood and gore to have a good movie. Even my wife who is not a great horror fan was enthralled by this movie. I give this excellent feature 9/10

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
I harbor a special fondness for a movie this bad., 5 October 2000
3/10
Author: Devotchka from Canada

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.

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
The greatest thriller of all time (no, really), 15 August 2003
10/10
Author: caffeine@mindrape.org from Melbourne, Australia

This film is fantastic. It has it all. A crazy child, a badly-dressed school teacher and gratuitous chuck taylor footage.

From the very beginning I knew I'd struck gold with this gem. Marc Marut is amazing as the looney-tune Johnny and the scene where he says, 'Bow wow' before bashing a dog to death is truly horrific.

Well done Marc! You are a great actor - don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Standard Fare For The Genre, Except The Killer Is Young, 8 November 2006
5/10
Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

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.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
If you see 1 movie about an evil paperboy, let it be this movie!, 2 June 2006
8/10
Author: leathermusic from United States

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Wow, where do I begin?. I had to give this 8 stars because it is a VERY good bad movie. In other words, it is so bad that it is extremely entertaining in its earnest ineptitude.

The plot involves a sadistically evil paperboy who just wants to be loved. He kills his elderly next door neighbor because he thinks that her daughter, Melissa is hot, and he just happens to need a new mommy. He knows that she will have to come to her mother's house for the funeral. All of that is revealed in the opening scene where the paperboy kills the old lady by covering her head with a plastic bag. The daughter comes back to town, brining with her her own daughter, the bubbly young Cammie, and the paperboy proceeds to worm his way into their lives with hilarious results. He soon wears out his welcome, meanwhile Melissa and Cammie are getting acquainted with the one and only Greatest American Hero, William Katt. The paperboy continues to kill various people in the neighborhood, including his own dad. Will his bloodthirsty behaviour take lives of Melissa and Cammie too? The production style is what makes this especially hilarious. It has the feel of a lifetime network movie. You know the type, very serious, soft focus camera work, emotionally ripe music throughout, solid if heavy handed acting, and a psychologically probing tone overall. It seems like these movies are made very quickly by well trained casts & crews that just want to get them over with. But this movie was not made for TV, because there is a little bit of nudity (Cammie's horny babysitter, who is of course murdered by the paperboy).

Some of the dialog is just hilarious, and much of it delivered in a heavy Canadian accent. As I said, it is all done completely straight, without a hint of irony or satire. William Katt seems embarrassed to be walking around in a sleeveless v neck sweater. And don't forget about the old lady from Seinfeld, you know the one who gets her bread stolen by Jerry, she's even more mistreated here. She dies of a heart attack when she thinks that she sees the paperboy beat her little dog to death with a baseball bat, but really he was just beating up a giant side of beef with glass jars placed inside it. (another reviewer failed to notice that the dog was NOT murdered even though the paperboy pets it and feeds it after the old lady passes on!).

There are many more scenes in this thing that are supposed to be disturbing, but come off as just being goofy. The movie is entertaining all the way through, which is sort of uncommon for Good Bad Movies. In summary, The Paperboy is a hilarious piece of film making that should not be missed.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
No this is not the kid from "Better Off Dead"., 18 March 2000
6/10
Author: Jay Stuler (stuler.1@osu.edu) from Ohio

A cross between "The Crush" and "Bad Seed". Nothing original here. The paperboy is obsessed with his neighbor, and will eliminate anyone who gets in his way. Marc Marut is very creepy as the title character, and "Greatest American Hero" William Katt has a supporting role. This is an adequate movie for a script we've seen hundreds of times before, if you're into this sort of thing. I would have liked to hear him say "I want my two dollars!" at least once, though.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Good stupid movie suits USA network programming, 30 July 2005
Author: tocotuffs2 from Honolulu

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This movie is so stupid it's funny. It's like a nineties version of "The Bad Seed". Johnny becomes infatuated with his hot new neighbor, Alexandra Paul, but not in a sexual way...he wants to become part of her family, together with her daughter. Poor Johnny, caught in that awkward age between sexual awakening and wanting to belong, he doesn't even realize how hot Alexandra is, he just wants to live in the same house with her and move away from his milquetoast father. Alexandra comes home one day to find Johnny in her kitchen, making apple pie. "We can have it a la mode," he smiles and says to the startled Alexandra and her daughter. "That means 'with ice cream'." You have to see it to believe it, this movie is filled with stupid scenes like this. An old woman meddles in Johnny's affairs and pays the price: he literally scares her to death, in a scene reminiscent of the magic-act scene in the movie "The Other". He even bumps off his dad, who wants to move them to California. This show pops up on USA once in a while, check it out, it's a riot.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Mild thriller...really not much on horror., 20 February 2004
5/10
Author: Aaron1375 from Alabama

First, from the looks of things this movie was an actual theater release which is a bit surprising. It looks and feels like a made for television movie, when I first saw it on USA network I thought it was a movie they made. Second, why is it listed as a horror movie? It is not very horrific at all. It is a rather mild thriller about a crazy paper boy who becomes really attached to this mother and daughter, so much so that he does everything in his power to make them like him. If anyone tries to warn the mother, then he deals with them. Here is a movie where you just want to beat the snot out of the stalker character; it drives you crazy at what he gets away with. It also makes me glad I don't have a person that likes me that much. Sure some days I wish a gal would form some sort of crush on me, but then you see some of the possible results of such an unhealthy obsession. All in all though this movie is not good, and it is not bad. It is just a mediocre thriller worth a look see if you see it on the television.

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I'm sad I can't find this movie on DVD anywhere!, 3 August 2009
10/10
Author: Johnurry64 from United States

I love this movie ever since I saw it on USA. However, it is out of print now & I'm hoping it will come back one day. The guy who played Johnny was the creepiest kid I've ever seen in a horror movie. Alexandra Paul was great as well. The girl who was her daughter though...well, stay away from acting, kid. Marc Marut's fits of rage were very, very believable in my opinion. This movie is a very good horror movie that I will recommend to anyone looking for a scare. I just hope I get to own this movie someday. This movie really isn't as bad as people think it is (at least in my opinion.) If you want to get a great scary thriller, get a subscription to The Paperboy!

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Surprisingly good acting, 25 June 2006
4/10
Author: eveningthought from Ireland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw this movie while baby-sitting and had little else to do on the Horror Channel. Basically it's about a 12 year old boy who murders an old woman in order to get her family to come back to the town so that he can become one of them because he hates his own family life. Sounds promising enough, huh?

The movie itself is pretty boring and predictable, like so many horror movies in recent years. There aren't any real moments where you jump out of fright or shock. Also there is a severe lack of gore, but that's understandable since the murderer in this case is a 12 year old boy (The Omen non-withstanding). The film-makers do manage get nudity in though, thanks to the trashy baby-sitter.

What's really surprising about this film is the performance of Johnny by Marc Marut. OK, so he doesn't look 12 years old but his acting in this film really does outshine all of the older actors. The scenes where he's acting the kiss-up and innocent young boy are strangely sinister and his moments of rage are remarkably intense and frightening on their own. You'll definitely understand why Melissa becomes so afraid of him! Plus I really enjoyed the creative ways in which he killed some of his victims and still left no evidence.

So this film isn't exactly a must-see, but it does make good nothing-on-TV watching when your bored and Marc Merut's acting does make it strangely compelling to watch. But aside from that it remains largely forgettable.

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