Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once - Buckaroo Bonzi -- but he also said - no matter where you go, there you are --  And there we were --

Dang near had one of our worst theater experiences in recent memory seeing this - a handful of rowdy teens held conversations and were yelling things like "ohh f*ck no" or "don't do it b*tch" the WHOLE time, which doesn't work at all for this type of flick cos it's a slow cooker-style horror. Not like Hostel style but very deep.

I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly fell out of my head.

Anywaz, there are so many movies that feature the boogeyman, and there are several with Boogeyman as the title. There are even duplicates of Boogeyman 2, and Boogeyman 3. How to keep track of all if them? Well this Boogeyman, one of horror most mythical figures, is transported on the screen by Rob Savage based upon a short story by renowned author Stephen King.

We enjoy being frightened and stressed ... in the safety of a dark movie theatre with a few dozen fellow movie goers. Everyone has fears... whether it be ghosts... the dark... or angry clowns with three legs and roller skates. Boogeyman is a movie about staring your fear straight down its dark evil throat. Your fears toy with you, taunt you, and the more you resist the more they jump at you and relentlessly pummel you until you admit defeat. I don't know about you, but I've gained a desire for horror films, and for some reason now enjoy being scared, having watched this I must admit there are more scares watching episodes of Scooby Doo.

Savage does a decent job by creating frightening atmosphere, but for a Stephen King adaptation, I read a crapload of King in my teens and I remember his short story far and away having the biggest effect on me. It was my favorite of his short stories for a long time, until I read "Gramma" in Skeleton Crew, which haunted me for a good while after.

So yea, I was super disappointed that the film doesn't live up to the source material, but then translating King's stuff to the screen is always a roll of the dice.

Bummer. The Boogeyman scared the fecal matter out of me the first time I read it. (I should read it again...)

Also, it has a Mount Rushmore sized plot hole. I fell down that logic hole and couldn't get back up. The minute the little girl claimed she was scared of the dark yet never turned on a light, I was almost finished.  Why didn’t anyone just flip a light switch and leave the lights on? Yeah I mean the electric bill would be high but hey anything to make sure that monster doesn’t attack you. OK, there were actually several shots of the characters flipping switches to turn on the light but it turns out the power is out. Ok, yet the TV still works...and the Christmas lights still on.

I eye-rolled so much during this flick that I almost got dizzy.

Rob, you can't eat your cake and have it too. If there was one change I would make, it would be that one of the kids has an extreme sensitivity to light bulbs and that's why nobody ever uses them.

I've kind of almost had it with the "supernatural as a heavy-handed metaphor for trauma/grief" trend that has come to dominate the genre in the last few years. Grief and trauma have always had a place in horror, and tropes aren't inherently bad things, but this one has become almost hackneyed and sort of tastelessly cynical. I can almost hear some cigarette-smoking producer saying, "Nice, but can't we have a dead kid or spouse? Y'know, some trauma? And one of them meta-furs? It worked for that Hereditary and that Babadook."

At this point, I'd rather just watch some horny teens get stabbed by a masked lunatic again.

Sophie Thatcher (not surprising at all) carries the film. She's blown me away in Yellowjackets. Happy to see her getting roles outside of TV as well. And there's praise for other performances, the overall quality, and just the creature design – not only as a set of glowing eyes in the darkness that leave you wondering if it was a trick of the light. When we finally get to see the full monster in the climactic third act battle, it is legitimately nightmare inducing. Or, it would have been, if the road to get there hadn’t been so rocky. By this point I just wanted the cumbersome nightmare to end.

It isn’t actually a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination, one that should never have seen the light of day. It’s just disappointingly uninspired given the hype that suggested it is something special. It isn’t. "The Boogeyman," won't change your life, but if you've got 90 minutes to fill on a lazy summer evening, you could do a lot worse.

-A

Will it work on a nice sunny Winter afternoon?
Oh God, I can't stand teen commentary during a movie. It's worse than people bringing their three-course meals in to eat.

Hated Hereditary. That scene, you know the one I mean, really was cheap.
Loved Babadook.

I hear you about the trauma trope. Midsommar did this also. Horrific setup. See above with Hereditary.

King films are definitely hard to nail. Hit and Miss. The Stand, what a book, but what crap on celluloid after so many tries..

Plot holes notwithstanding I'll still see this, cause like you, my appetite for a good Horror keeps expanding - not the gratuitous Hostel type but the really scary type.  just not sure if you've sold me on this for the big screen.

Great review, Andrea!
We could use your colourful writing skills for the Blog...
Keep it in mind.

I didn't mind it. They had their work cut out for them trying to adapt a very-short short story into a feature and I appreciate that pretty much the whole short is contained in the film. The ending was a nice little subversion of expectations.

Nothing too scary here, but you will likely jump at the jump scares because they are effective.

It did feel very much like a paint-by-numbers horror, nothing particularly new or ground breaking, but it wasn't a waste of 1.5 hours IMO.

Quoted from LC King films are definitely hard to nail. Hit and Miss. The Stand, what a book, but what crap on celluloid after so many tries..

I love the 94 adaptation! The latest one is one of the worst things I've ever watched.

Quoted from Warren I didn't mind it. They had their work cut out for them trying to adapt a very-short short story into a feature and I appreciate that pretty much the whole short is contained in the film. The ending was a nice little subversion of expectations. Nothing too scary here, but you will likely jump at the jump scares because they are effective. It did feel very much like a paint-by-numbers horror, nothing particularly new or ground breaking, but it wasn't a waste of 1.5 hours IMO.

Y'know I figured you'd probably like it Warren.

I'll watch it again once it hits streaming services. Minus the screaming teens.

Quoted Text Great review, Andrea! We could use your colourful writing skills for the Blog...Keep it in mind.

Thank ya kindly, Libs. I'll consider it.

I feel like there's definitely more than one horror movie already titled "The Boogeyman". Also, the description of the monster in this sounds exactly like Pennywise/the creature in It, except for the shapeshifting. I know Stephen King repeats himself a lot because he's written millions of stories but it still stuck me.