NOTE: This article will contain some light spoiler material for The Boogeyman

Based on an older short story by Stephen King!

Actually, the way this flick was first advertised, I thought this was maybe a new plot from Stephen King–I was sure he was not the screenwriter–but upon further research, it is actually based on a previous work of his, published in Night Shift way back in 1978.

Man, I should have known that. I gotta read more King, man. I even named my cat after him. Stephen Kat is going to be so disappointed in me.

Anyway, The Boogeyman is a dive into King’s back catalogue by Hollywood in an effort to come out with a new horror flick for 2023. And I get counter-programming in regards to theatrical releases and all that, but this movie had the misfortune of being released opposite Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. So you know it’s getting buried in the headlines this weekend.

The story here is the Harper family, a father and his two daughters. The wife/mother was recently killed in an automobile accident, and the family is doing the best they can just to pick up the pieces and move on. Older daughter Sadie returns to school only to get bullied by her friends. Younger daughter Sawyer sleeps with a Grand Central Station light display in her room. And father Will buries his feelings and returns to his in-home therapy practice…

It is that last act that moves the plot forward. A strange and disturbed man played by David Dastmalchian comes to Will’s house seeking help, and this early scene gives me my favorite line in the whole flick:

Lester Billings (explaining why he came to see a therapist): I can’t go see a lawyer because I haven’t committed a crime. Even though everyone thinks I have.

Uh, guy? That is precisely when you go see a lawyer. That is what they are there for! Go see a lawyer now, friend!

But whatever. After Polka Dot Man’s visit, the Harper family starts being haunted by a strange, malevolent presence. It initially seems to be primarily out for Sawyer, but it quickly shifts to haunting both daughters, with Sadie (Sophie Thatcher, of Yellowjackets fame) taking on the lead role in the film to figure out what is happening to them.

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TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+Thatcher, who I am biased in favor of because I dig Yellowjackets, does an admirable job as the lead here. In her TV show, she shows she can handle trauma and anger. She channels both of those aspects here, but adds some terror to the mix. She’s got a bright future ahead of her whether she sticks to the horror genre or branches out into indie film territory. Either way, I expect we’ll see a lot more of her going forward in the next decade-plus.

Honestly, she is acting circles around most of her co-stars here. I guess nobody else is particularly bad (and the problems I have with Vivien Lyra Blair as Sawyer are much more in how she is written than how the young actress performs), but Thatcher is the clear stand-out.

+The Boogeyman itself is a creepy and terrifying monster design. It’s almost all (if not entirely) CGI throughout, and I know people have strong feelings about Practical Effects Vs CGI (especially horror fans!), but it carries a great sense of dread (especially since it is helped out by shadows and darkness for 99% of its on-screen time).

In the third act, we finally see The Boogeyman get his hands on a victim and start to feed, and it is decidedly creepy! Just a brilliant visualization of its, I guess, finishing move? It feels a lot like Pennywise/It in this regard, but who cares? It still works! I won’t spoil this by describing any aspect of it to you, but it was the most unsettling scene of the flick.

-Where to start on the Downs here? I guess with this: every character does exactly what you expect dumb horror movie characters to do at every turn. Peripheral vision does not exist. Loud noises and crashes and screams that everyone in a house should hear no matter what floor they are on are somehow soundproofed. The screenwriters and director weren’t going to be assed with making believable terror, so they just opted for convenience instead. It’s maddening. If your protagonists have to be idiots and not have basic human sensory functions in order for the horror to succeed… guess what? It’s not very horrifying.

The antagonist is a creature that needs darkness to function. The movie takes place in modern day. And we get one (1) scene that last barely a couple of seconds where a character actually pulls out their cell phone flashlight. The rest of the time, people are walking around with candles, lighters, or flickering Christmas lights that are plugged in several rooms/floors away. Sawyer opts to play video games in her living room with every single light turned off after her first few encounters with Boogey. What are these characters doing?

–The idea of a monster that hops from victims to victims based on some kind on contact is overplayed at this point. I gave Smile a pass last year for copy/pasting from The Ring and It Follows because I thought Smile was able to do it and still be well written and handled.

No such luck here.

In addition, this is another post-modern horror where the enemy is correlative to some level of mental illness or condition; this time it is grief (just like it was in The Babadook). Another badly overplayed concept from the last several years. WE GET IT, SCREENWRITERS! Your poor mental health was the REAL monster all along. Move onto another theme now, please.

Take away the decent filmmaking and better character choices that I was personally able to appreciate about Smile, and all you are left with is a movie that feels like a worse version of a dozen others we have already seen.

OVERALL

Not a great effort! Nothing about The Boogeyman is particularly inspired or competently managed outside of the performance by Sophie Thatcher. You’ve seen every aspect of it before, and what’s more, you’ve seen them all done far better.