'The Boogeyman' review: There really is a monster underneath your bed (2024)
Things go bump in the night, and then some, in "The Boogeyman," director Rob Savage's well-played horror exercise that alternately goes from slow and brooding to loud and booming.
It's a movie that uses trauma as a catch-all, a perhaps too-convenient way to explain away the monsters underneath our beds or lurking behind open closet doors. But when it ratchets up the scares it comes alive, and director Savage ("Host," "Dashcam") knows how to build out a sequence and ramp up its intensity. It's a monster movie with bite.
Chris Messina ("Air") is Will Harper, a therapist whose wife was recently killed in a car accident. His daughters — high school-age Sadie ("Yellowjackets'" Sophie Thatcher) and elementary schooler Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) — are dealing with the fallout in their own ways, mostly by retreating inward.
Sadie returns to school wearing one of her mother's dresses, her AirPods blocking out her classmates' messages of sympathy. When she's bullied by a mean girl and spills yogurt on her dress, she decides school's not for her and runs home.
The same time she's home, her father is visited by Lester (David Dastmalchian), a disturbed man seeking professional help, or at least a sympathetic ear. He explains to Will how his three children were mysteriously killed and the town thinks he's to blame, and when Will turns his back, Lester goes upstairs and hangs himself in a closet. Sadie is the unfortunate soul who finds his body.
There's a supernatural force at play here, that of the Boogeyman, here rendered as a wall-crawling demon monster, seen mostly in shadows for a good portion of the film's running time. Savage, working from a script based on Stephen King's 1973 short story, spends time focusing on the Harpers and their family dynamics, so when weird things start happening to them, you care. It's almost 30 minutes into the movie until the first true jump scare arrives.
King's short story leaves perhaps a bit to be desired in terms of narrative, and the script by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods and Mark Heyman could use a little more meat to chew on. But Savage lets 'er rip in several ripsaw sequences, including one where the big, bad monster is lured out into a room rigged with trigger wires and loaded shotguns. (The sound design team deserves a nod here as well.)
Savage shoots in dark hues, lots of blacks and reds, and creates a suspenseful mood throughout. While it plays with familiar themes, "The Boogeyman" is a step up from many modern mainstream horror titles. It's a thoughtful, organic piece of filmmaking that just happens to have a monster in the middle.
agraham@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @grahamorama
'The Boogeyman'
GRADE: B
Rated PG-13: for terror, violent content, teen drug use and some strong language
It's a movie that uses trauma as a catch-all, a perhaps too-convenient way to explain away the monsters underneath our beds or lurking behind open closet doors. But when it ratchets up the scares it comes alive, and director Savage ("Host," "Dashcam") knows how to build out a sequence and ramp up its intensity.
The Boogeyman is the titular main antagonist of the 2023 horror film The Boogeyman, based off the Stephen King short story of the same name. It is a monster of unknown origin that targets and murders entire families, usually ones that have experienced a loss of a family member.
The Boogeyman has become a great horror film based on a short story by Stephen King. The film is exciting and the makers respond well to the childish fears of a monster in the closet or under your bed. No unnecessary filth or an extremely bloody whole, no, The Boogeyman plays more with the viewer's imagination.
What to Know. The Boogeyman might fall short of its terrifying source material, but a spooky atmosphere and some solid performances help keep the chills coming. If you don't mind spending a lot of time waiting for things to happen, The Boogeyman is worth watching for some solid jump scares.
The boogeyman is not real, but most cultures have some version of the boogeyman myth, although they go by many, many different names. The actual "boogeyman" name most likely originated sometime in the 19th century, but the mythology of these kinds of "monsters" have been around for much longer than that.
It is, we learn in the credits, indeed based on the King story of the same name, from his 1978 collection “Night Shift.” Sort of. A couple of the characters in the film share names with characters from the book, and one of them does similar things.
Despite Sadie and her family getting to a much better place, with Will openly talking about the loss of his wife and The Boogeyman seemingly dying in physical form, the film suggests that grief will continue to be prevalent in one's life no matter how much time has passed.
Bogeymen may target a specific act or general misbehaviour, depending on the purpose of invoking the figure, often on the basis of a warning from an authority figure to a child. The term is sometimes used as a non-specific personification of, or metonym for, terror – and sometimes the Devil.
Under the Bed is not your average horror movie. Instead it has the feel of good old films like Fright Night or Lost Boys. The story is that of two young brothers battling a demon that lives under their bed.
The scary monsters under the bed is a variation of the bogeyman which has existed for centuries, in various guises, all around the world. It is likely that the bogeyman legend originated simply as a behaviour deterrent for children.
Many believed that they were made to torment humans, and while some only played simple pranks, others were more foul in nature. Boogeyman-like beings are almost universal, common to the folklore of many countries. All of these have a similar concept, a mysterious being who punishes kids for being naughty.
On the first occasion in which Lester Billings, the protagonist of the story, manages to catch a glimpse of him, he is described as a creature with a head similar to that of a scarecrow, with sloping shoulders and hands armed with sharp claws.
Twyla Boogeyman is a 2013-introduced and all-around character. She is a freshman student at Monster High and is a boogeyman, daughter of the Boogey Man, she lives in the Boogey Mansion, a manor maze in New Salem, and beginning of her first introduction as a new character, the same age as Howleen Wolf, which is 14.
He made his official in-ring debut on the December 2 episode of SmackDown!, defeating Simon Dean in a squash. During this match, he took a handful of live worms from his pocket and stuffed them into his mouth.
Scylla was a supernatural female creature, with 12 feet and six heads on long snaky necks, each head having a triple row of sharklike teeth, while her loins were girdled by the heads of baying dogs.
Introduction: My name is Carlyn Walter, I am a lively, glamorous, healthy, clean, powerful, calm, combative person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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