The Boogeyman
The Boogeyman
Starring Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair, David Dastmalchian
Directed by Rob Savage
A month after the sudden death of their mother, sisters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) are trying to adjust to life without her, while her widow Will Harper (Chris Messina) suppresses his feelings and hides behind his job as a psychiatrist. One day he's visited by brooding Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian), who tells Will that his children were killed by a mysterious creature that strikes in the dark when the parents aren't paying attention. Soon after Sawyer begins seeing this monster in the darkness, and at first Sadie doesn't believe her sister until she sees it herself, sending her on a desperate quest to find out what this creature is and how to kill it before it eliminates her family entirely.
The Good:
Sophie Thatcher is quickly becoming this generation's scream queen, appearing in the critically acclaimed and terrifying series "Yellowjackets" as well as taking the lead here, and its her performance that really saves the film from becoming a quick $5 turnover to the Walmart movie bin. She grounds Sadie in a deeply relatable view as a troubled teen who's struggling with losing her best friend - her mother - and how that's affected her since. She's isolated from her friends (which, being honest, aren't really her friends if they've always treated her like they did in the movie), tries to conjure her mother from watching seances on YouTube (in a deeply meta moment she watches a video of a woman channeling a spirit that actually took place in director Rob Savage's other film "Host"), and she clings to her younger sister in hopes of keeping her safe. She's smart and resourceful, but also delicate and easily broken mentally - which adds to the sense of urgency the film tries to convey.
The entire premise of the film is interesting, and even though it's not done spectacularly, it does hit home the theme of grief and how it affects a family (basically I didn't know where this fell under the "good" or "bad," because honestly it's mediocre, but ultimately I decided it was 51% good and 49% bad). This Boogeyman arrives just as the family fractures mentally, and only compounds their grief, sadness, and fear.
The film runs at a scant 98 minutes, so the jump scares are numerous and plentiful, and while most of them failed to elicit a response (except for the few times I jumped because I was nodding off and the loud music jolted me awake).
There's a scene that's truly terrifying to me, and not because of any monster or jump scare, but really doesn't make sense to the story as a whole. Well, it does, but it doesn't really need to be there. It involves Sawyer and a loose tooth that made me cringe because tooth issues are a personal hangup of mine.
Cinematographer Eli Born and production designer Jeremy Woodard did excellent work at framing an overall dark feeling to the film by making everything look as dark as possible, even during the daylight. The house design is shadowy, dead, and reminiscent of a place that was once full of light and love but when their mother dies, turns into a place of perpetual mourning that gives the Boogeyman room to breathe.
The Bad:
While I said the concept of the story was slightly good, it was also slightly bad as well. The film touches on the issue of grief and hints that this Boogeyman is the iteration of their grief, but it's never fully explored. Films like "The Babadook" does this to perfection, and against that shadow "The Boogeyman" has nowhere to go but back in the closet where it belongs.
Chris Messina tries his best as the terribly thinly written Will, but not even he can make his character more than a caricature of male masculinity. He just lost his wife, he's suddenly a single father, and we never see him act out in any emotional manner. He buries himself in his work, maintains a stiff upper lip, and for all intents and purposes it seems that he doesn't care at all that his wife is gone. For a film supposedly focusing on grief, this is a poor decision for the patriarch to take.
While the Boogeyman creature has some scary moments especially when it mimics the voices of others, the character itself is so illogically defined. All we know is that it's existed since the beginning of time (or so they say), but the fact that it can a) mimic people's voices, b) seemingly teleport to any location, and c) appears to families seemingly at random really make for a disjointed creature. While it's not necessary to know the full backstory of every creature, a little knowledge would go a long way in understanding how this one works.
Speaking of the creature, it does better when it's heard and not seen. When the creature is seen, to me anyway, it looked like a CGI conglomerate of that close-up shot of an ant's face, that terribly-rendered CGI abomination from "Smile," and the creatures from "A Quiet Place" (the fact that the writers here were also writers for "A Quiet Place" didn't go unnoticed to me). It wasn't scary in the slightest, and proof that, again, CGI pales in comparison to good ole fashioned practical effects.
While the set designs and cinematography established the mood, sometimes the screen was so dark it was difficult to see what was happening. I had to rely on the music when it soared to know something bad was happening, but honestly I didn't much care.
The Verdict:
For as long as humanity existed there's been the fear of the creature in the shadows, and while "The Boogeyman" tried to bring it out of the shadows, due to its lackluster whole, it turned the creature into a boring, uninspired thing that wouldn't scare Shaggy and Scooby if they ran into it.
The Score: C-
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