The Boogeyman (2023)

Day 75 of Sobriety.

The Boogeyman is based on a Stephen King short story from 1978. I have never read the story, but having read a synopsis, it seems to have been greatly expanded for this movie. The plot concerns a family of three—a father and two daughters, who, while struggling to come to terms with the mother’s recent death, find themselves being preyed upon by a malevolent supernatural entity—the eponymous Boogeyman. The Boogeyman, as the name suggests, is the “monster under the bed” that haunts our childhood imaginations. As the protagonists in the movie discover, however, this Boogeyman is real.

I think I am going to go off on a bit of a rant here, so please forgive me.

I am kind of fed up with films like this—and it seems like so many of them have been made in the past couple of decades, and continue to be made. I’m talking about movies that are very competently made all round, with good acting, that start with a reasonably interesting premise and generate a good deal of atmosphere, and then about half or two-thirds of the way through, they just ruin everything by becoming far too heavy-handed, CG-drenched, cheesy action films.

 

The Boogeyman was exactly like that. For about the first half of the movie, it built up a good sense of creeping dread. We knew something was really there—something really horrific, but we never really got to see it—just vague, fleeting glimpses and suggestions. The film executed a very effective double-punch of (1) Tapping into our deep-seated childhood fears, and (2) Showing us very young, helpless children in grave danger. Those early scenes were not exactly original, but still pretty effective. There was a bit too much reliance on jump-scares, but it was still getting under my skin.

Then, BAM!—the formerly shadowy, menacing, boogeyman is now a roaring, jumping, CG monster, and the kids are doing battle with it using guns, sports equipment—whatever comes to hand. It is somewhat akin to watching someone else play the boss battle in a video game, or perhaps some of the worst parts of Stranger Things.

I had exactly the same experience last week when I watched Mike Flanagan's Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016): really great 60s period setting, very nicely shot, good acting—especially by the young girl at the center of the story. Pretty effective slow build-up of creepiness—nothing groundbreaking, but it was doing its job. Then they threw it all away by laying everything on way too thick, explaining the crap out of everything, and the young girl, who had up until that point skillfully embodied the subtly encroaching threat of evil was now scurrying back-and-forth across the walls and ceilings with a CG monster face in nearly every scene. Completely ruined. It is so disappointing to see a film take a nose-dive like that.

To me, this pattern seems to be a malaise in modern horror films. I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that these films are not made for someone like me, because they seem to be enjoyed by plenty of people, and they sure as heck keep makin’ ‘em! Maybe I am just much older than the target audience. I don’t know.

But having said that, Stephen King himself apparently really liked the movie.

But then he really hated Kubrick's The Shining…?