When Stephen King gives out a movie recommendation, people usually listen, after all, it was his glowing words for such things as The Evil Dead (“the most ferociously original horror film of 1982”) and the works of Clive Barker (“I have seen the future of horror…”) that helped put them firmly on the map. Ok, sure, he’s not always on the money (I personally wouldn’t class the Last House On The Left remake as “the best horror film if the century”), but all in all, when King talks people usually listen – which is what makes his endorsement for Rob Savage’s The Boogeyman so interesting. Yes, it’s based on one of his own short stories (from Night Shift, in case you were wondering), but considering how hot and cold a lot of his movie adaptations go, you could hardly accuse him of patting himself on the back – so is his ringing praise that The Boogeyman “scared the shit” out of him valid, or is he just relieved it didn’t come out like The Dark Tower?
Rocked by the recent loss of the family matriarch, the Harper family attempt to struggle on despite still lugging around an impressive amount of baggage. Psychiatrist husband Will, can’t even bring himself to talk about his wife, let alone process it while his daughter are suffering in their own way. Teenage Sadie is struggling to reconnect with her friends at school as her grief eats her up inside, but youngest Sawyer seems to be having the most trouble by having built up a sizable fear of the dark and is convinced that monsters lurk under her bed and in her wardrobe.
One day a twitchy man named Lester Billings comes to Will, asking if he can have an unbooked therapy session and after he unloads a load of disturbing information off his chest about he and his wife being blamed for the unexplained deaths of his three children, he wanders off into the Harper house only to be found later, apparently dead of a self inflicted hanging.
Just when you think that nothing more can possibly happen to this family that seemingly have less good fortune than the rabbit who lost a leg only for it to become a good luck charn, Sawyer’s night terrors take a worrying turn and there really does seem to be some malevolent, other worldly being that’s somehow moved on from the Billings to infect the Harpers like some sort of creeping curse.
However, can Sadie manage to wrestle her grief into submission for long enough to see what is unfolding under her very nose as she slowly puts the pieces together to realise that some thing is stalking them from the darkest corners of their own house? And even if her ghostbusting, Nancy Drew act pays off, can she rally her family together to fight something the late, lamented Billings children dubbed the Boogeyman?
Those of you who have been following the career of Rob Savage thus far may be surprised by the fact that, after helming Host and Dashcam – two movies that hinge almost entirely on basing their frights via the medium of modern technology – he’s turned to making a more traditional style, old school horror flick that seems incredibly normal when compared to his previous, boundary pushing works. Luckily, for the most part, Savage turns out to be perfectly able to turn in a good, old fashioned, skin crawler that’s content to plonk itself somewhere between the highbrow drama of Ari Aster and the slick, rapid fire jump scares of an entry of The Conjuring Universe. Laying out enough tangible dread and tension to make you chew your nails to such a degree, you might have to visit a dietician to wean yourself off your new, all-fingernail diet, Savage also guarantees that, due to some three dimensional character work and some impressively solid and endearing performances (Yellowjacket’s Sophie Thatcher and Obi Wan Kenobi’s Vivien Lyra Blair are great), you’re engaged even when our cast isn’t being harassed by a light-phobic creature. In fact, in lesser hands, what could have been a rather samey string of scare sequences is given interesting new twists as the film ekes out an impressive amount of mileage out lighting a number of tense moments from a variety of esoteric light sources. Be it Sawyer’s cordless, orb shaped night light, someone wrapping themselves in blinking christmas decorations or even the flash of video game firepower that illuminates a room at the push of an X button, every time the dark-dwelling bastard decides to try its luck, it all feels nicely varied.
However, those more fond of “elevated horror” might find themselves frustrated by the fact that The Boogeyman plays up to a few of the genre’s more over familiar tropes as numerous characters frequently ditch common sense purely to move the plot forward. The movie gives us many inadvisable moments (surely “accepting the request of an unplanned therapy session from a guy played by David Dastmalchisn” has got to be a strong contender for number one), but for people who believe horror should have moved on from characters investigating strange noises in a dark room or wandering into strange houses with “murderers” spray painted across the porch, it might be a little too throwback. While we’re on the subject, is every closet door located in American constantly left ajar at all times?
Another, more pertinent, issue is that the whole enterprise isn’t anything you haven’t seen done before, and, might I add, fairly recently too. You could argue that it’s notably reminiscent of Smile and many others. Even the creature itself – despite being wisely kept in the shadows for the entirety apart from a funky quirk going on with its preferred method of feeding – isn’t all that different from the growing number of wall scampering, elongated-limbed wraith seen in those countless other films that boast a remarkably similar premise. Fuck, even title is the same as a forgotten, 2005, horror flick and a 1980’s video nasty…
However, for those more forgiving about films that embrace well worn horror tropes but unfortunately often veers into the realms of the overfamilar, this Boogeyman is a decidedly above average frightener that brings the creeps, delivers the crawls and provides some terrific, scared-of-the-dark, jolts that’ll give cinema ushers plenty of spilt popcorn to sweep up. Just don’t expect much originality to come tumbling out of your nearest closet along with that life draining monster…
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