The Child and the Killer (also known as The Man in the Shadows[1]) is a 1959 British low budget second feature[2] crime film directed by Max Varnel and starring Patricia Driscoll and Robert Arden.

He invades the home of the widowed Peggy, and orders her son Tommy at gunpoint to guide him through the backwaters of the English countryside to safety.

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Although this highly concentrated, small budget thriller is weak in dialogue and over-generous in dramatic licence, it is convincingly enough acted, particularly by Richard Williams as the boy.

When the search gets under way and dialogue is at a minimum, Max Varnel's direction becomes more forceful and the tension of the last scenes is quite effectively held.

[5] AllMovie thought the film had "elements in common with the much-later Kevin Costner vehicle A Perfect World [1993]".