Though I’m aware that ‘based on a story by Stephen King’ can give some people pause, for me it’s essentially catnip. In my humble opinion the guy is a certified genius and I have loved nearly everything he has written, and nearly every film that has come from his work. Hell, anyone who knows me knows that my favourite films of all time are ‘It’ Chapter 1 & 2… and I’ve watched ALOT of films! So, The Boogeyman had my attention with that pedigree; still this film is based on a short story which historically has often meant lots of stretching and filler, and I’m not cool with that, so I had my expectations in check.

The Boogeyman tells the story of a family mourning the recent loss of their wife/mother, when they are targeted by an entity that latches onto people at their lowest. A kind of psychic vampire that thrives on their misery and uses it as a way to infiltrate their world. When psychiatrist dad Will Harper (Chris Messina) is visited by a bereaved and troubled patient, he has no idea what the patient has unleashed into his home. Daughters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivian Lyra Blair) struggle to make dad see the threat that’s just under his nose but, in his own grief, he may be too late.

Directed by Rob Savage of ‘The Host’ (great) and ‘Dashcam’ (shite), and written by Scott Beck of Á Quiet Place’, this had a good team behind the scenes. The cast is also strong with all 3 leads giving committed performances in a film that allows them more space to explore the characters than your average horror. This is also a film that understands and utilizes light and shadows to their full advantage – that light ball does some good work here!

I liked alot about this film – atmospheric and affectively somber music from composer Patrick Jonsson (The Alienist), a father character that has his own life that extends beyond his interactions with the kids, not just there to be an enabler or a dissenter, not just there to move the plot along as a generic parental figure.
The relationship with the sisters is beautifully realised and refreshingly sweet without being cloying,
both sister characters are individual and real, not obnoxious but believable and unexaggerated in their personalities.
The creature is effective and the parts of him that you see seem to have an actual purpose rather than just to be scary, the house itself is quirky and looks lived in.
Sadie’s friend circle are teenagers and as such, fail to understand the things that she has been through; they are believable as teenagers grappling with whether or not they want to put themselves through being friends with someone so serious and fraught.
There is as much care taken with the quiet times and the talks as there is with the scares, and when bad things happen the way that characters respond feels correct and the way that real people would respond.
One of the things I really enjoyed was that it didn’t feel safe, in other words I wasn’t confident that the main characters were all going to survive, and that is an important thing to maintain tension.

You could tell that alot of care went into this script and the small details and big picture were both realised in most satisfying ways. Did it scare me? Not much though there was one scene that had my heart pounding – the first glimpse of the sheer bulk of the creature they are dealing with. Many horror films don’t even give me that one moment of shock, so I was grateful for this one.

A simple story told well that can be enjoyed as both a monster movie and as an allegory for grief, this is one boogeyman worth dragging out from under the bed.

7.5/10