Movie Review - The Boogeyman

Director: Rob Savage
Genre: Horror/ Thriller/ Mystery
Runtime: 98 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivian Lyla Blair, David Dastmalchian
 
Description: Still reeling from the tragic death of their mother, a teenage girl (Sophie Thatcher) and her younger sister (Vivian Lyla Blair) find themselves plagued by a sadistic presence in their house and struggle to get their grieving father to pay attention before it’s too late.

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2023 MOVIE CHALLENGE
WEEK 44: A HORROR MOVIE
 
Review: Horror movies come in all shapes and sizes, but the ones that really like to scare you often follow the same pattern: in the first half a series of terrifying scenes and in the second half figuring out the mystery and defeating the evil. Usually there is some breathing room to recover from the tension. “The Boogeyman” refuses to follow this pattern and keeps the horror in until the very end. the pauses in between are very short and that works.

Sadie’s mother has recently died, and despite the fact that she and her younger sister Sawyer are very eager to talk about it, their father, himself a noted psychologist, sends them to an outside therapist. He himself gets a man at the door who tells them that his children have been murdered by a monster in the closet. Shortly thereafter, strange occurrences begin to take place in Sadie’s house as well, especially around Sawyer.
That brief conversation between Sadie’s father and the help-seeking intruder is all that matters in Stephen King’s short story. The makers of this film use it as the basis for a plot and build on it. King’s 1973 story has been made into a short twice before, and a stage play. For this new adaptation, with a runtime of over and hour and a half, a lot has been successfully made up.

First, it’s about more than just a monster under the bed. The boogeyman symbolizes the dark, consuming power of grief. The harper family is immersed in grief that the sole remaining parent does nothing about, because he is not yet ready to fully face the truth. That festering infection is displayed in the form of a creature that can even mimic the voice of the deceased mother. Until the very end, this theme is present.

Secondly, it’s just creepy. All the cheap tricks are skillfully used to sink viewers deeper into the chair. They are not given rest to recover from that. This causes the unpleasant experience that a horror film is supposed to produce.

Besides unnerving shots of dark corners and corridors, the monster’s voice is highly disturbing. It is a kind of demonic impression that varies between flawless imitation of someone who knows the characters and animal sounds from the deepest caverns of hell. The idea of hearing such a sound in the darkness of the bedroom is pure horror. And it’s what you can’t see that scares the most.

Where the story has that extra layer, the characters are a bit flatter. The younger sister is just a little girl who likes to sleep with the light on. Fatherly love is a little more complex, but isn’t focused on that much. Sadie is the teenager who has no desire to be seen at school as “that girl whose mother died”. And some of her friends act so antisocial towards her and her situation that it feels implausible. But Sadie is the only character that gets a but more depth.  

“The Boogeyman” is definitely a contender of the most scary film of the year, because scary and effective it certainly is.

Rating: 4/ 5