Review: The Boogeyman

Synopsis:

High school student Sadie Harper and her younger sister Sawyer are reeling from the recent death of their mother and aren’t getting much support from their father, Will, a therapist who is dealing with his own pain. When a desperate patient unexpectedly shows up at their home seeking help, he leaves behind a terrifying supernatural entity that preys on families and feeds on the suffering of its victims.

What We Thought:

The Boogeyman is the latest 21st century “horror” film that relies on jumpscares and tension instead of slashing and killing. If you liked Barbarian, The Black Phone and Smile from last year then you will like it. If you grew up on 80s slashers you might not like it. It’s fine to me, but I prefer big guys with machetes over ghosts and paranormal activity.

I will say there is a lot about the film that I liked. The cast is very good. Chris Messina is an underrated actor and he’s good as the dad here. He’s dealing with patients while also trying to cope with the loss of his wife. He somewhat ignores his daughters who need their dad to help cope with the loss themselves. They want their dad, not the therapist. Sophie Thatcher (who plays the younger version of Juliette Lewis in Yellowjackets) is very good. She’s the lead in it and holds your attention throughout the film. The youngest daughter is played by Vivien Lyra Blair who you might know as the young Princess Leia in Obi-Wan Kenobi. She has some great screams in the movie and the three make for a believable family. David Dastmalchian is in the film briefly and you can never go wrong with him.

The direction and score are also solid. It’s tense when it needs to be tense. The score adds to its atmosphere. The location is typical Stephen King with a family and kid dynamic to the story. It has a quick runtime so it gets into the story pretty quickly and unravels quickly as well. All of these things are the biggest positives of the film.

Unfortunately it’s the story that holds it back. I don’t even know if I understood the story. There’s a creature that doesn’t like the light. It is now part of Messina’s house after being in a different one, but that house still has issues. The creature is old, but has no backstory whatsoever. It feeds on fear or something like that. There is no explanation of this shadow creature/boogeyman other than it’s old and goes after families with trauma. I think.

Because I really didn’t get the point of The Boogeyman it’s not something I’ll watch again. With all the jumpscares and lackluster story it just didn’t do it for me. I’m tired of these films that have something in the background or hides in the shadows or look a door opened on its own, oh no! It’s not the type of horror I like and it will just never work for me. But these movies tend to make money on low budgets so they’ll keep pumping them. I’m not familiar with the Stephen King story this is based on so I can’t say how accurate of an adaptation it is. But again, if you like this type of horror and the movies I’ve mentioned, you’ll probably like it.

The Boogeyman is directed by Rob Savage (“Host”) with a screenplay by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods (“A Quiet Place”) and Mark Heyman (“Black Swan”) and a screen story by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods based upon the short story by Stephen King, stars Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets”), Chris Messina (“Air”), Vivien Lyra Blair (“Obi-Wan Kenobi”), Marin Ireland (“The Umbrella Academy”), Madison Hu (“Bizaardvark”), LisaGay Hamilton (“Vice”), and David Dastmalchian (“Boston Strangler”). The producers are Shawn Levy (“Stranger Things”), Dan Levine (“Arrival”), and Dan Cohen (“The Adam Project”), with John H. Starke (“Sicario”), Emily Morris (“Rosaline”), Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, Ryan Cunningham, Adam Kolbrenner (“The Tomorrow War”), and Robyn Meisinger serving as executive producers.