THE BOOGEYMAN - Mark Reviews Movies

The Boogeyman, 20th Century Studios

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | June 1, 2023

There is little more frightening to a child than the thought of a monster in the closet or under the bed. As we get older, such fears don't disappear. They simply take on a more intangible quality. What is a fear of dark places and unseen spaces if not one of the unknown and the uncertain? Director Rob Savage's The Boogeyman taps into that most foundational of fears for a bit, until its generic setup and monster start to overwhelm what starts as a fairly chilling series of suspense and scare sequences.

The premise, loosely coming from a short story by Stephen King, does establish itself as entirely familiar in a short amount of time, which is too bad considering how the movie begins. It's an unnerving scene in a toddler's bedroom, with Savage rotating the camera around the room—from the scared and crying child, to the closet door opening, to a shadow passing along the wall toward the crib, while what seems to be a father's voice cracks occasionally to reveal some growling entity.

The final moment, silencing everything in the room, doesn't make much sense in relation to the information we learn later, but that's more an issue with this screenplay being more concerned with inventing such scenes than with figuring out some consistency in what's actually happening in general here. It's a simple but unsettling beat regardless, mainly because of how little we actually see when and before it occurs.

Writers Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mark Heyman's screenplay follows a family of three, who suffered a tragic loss about a month prior and are still grieving. Will Harper (Chris Messina), a therapist who works out of his office at home (convenient both for him and for the plot to actually happen), has lost his wife, and his two daughters, elder Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and younger Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair), have lost their mother in a car accident. It's pretty much a cliché at this point for a horror story to really be about grief and/or trauma, but there is something a bit deeper here in the way a lack of communication, stemming from Will's inability to discuss his wife's death or listen to his daughters about the subject, figures into how and why things unfold.

That starts with the unscheduled arrival of Lester (David Dastmalchian) at Will's home office. He, as it turns out, is the father of three children—all of whom died under mysterious circumstances. The man has become convinced that the kids were killed by a supernatural monster, and with his exit, Sawyer begins to see and be terrified by said monster, leading Sadie to eventually believe her little sister and look for a way to defeat the creature.

Again, this is all routine stuff, which only becomes sillier, less believable, and less effective with each new element of plot and mythology that's introduced. Something like this—both in terms of the narrative and the monster—requires either some acceptance of the mystery of the creature or a design that's too frightening to ignore. When it comes to this monster, let's just say that the movie operates best when we're only provided the suggestion of the beast.

Savage certainly embraces that approach during the first act of the movie and a bit beyond, as a sketch of the creature—unseen by us for a while—hits some nerve in Will, Sawyer spots only glimpses of something in her room after her closet door bursts open, and Sadie begins to see glowing eyes in the shadows that might simply be reflections of something innocuous—or something much worse. One scene in a therapist's office features increasing intervals of darkness broken by short periods of red light, and it keeps us on our toes—not only because the lighting obscures so much, but also because we're never certain who or what will appear in the next moment of light.

Gradually, we see more of and learn more about the monster, and the illusion and threat of this boogeyman lose their impact along with the revelations. Some of that comes from the shattering of the mystery by way of a character, played by Marin Ireland, who exists exclusively to offer up an explanation for the creature and some useless rules for how it operates (and to turn her home into a constant fire hazard, before making a string of even stranger decisions).

Most of it, though, is simply a matter of the monster not being as scary in plain sight as it is as a concept. That's especially true when it also seems capable of traveling from location to location on a whim and is presented by way of visual effects that the filmmakers seem too eager to obscure by way of various tricks of camera movement and editing.

It's all a shame, because there is something inherently sinister about this creature as an idea and, at least during the early parts of The Boogeyman, in practice. The movie surrounding it ultimately doesn't do that concept much justice.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products