558: The Boogeyman

[00:00:01] Let's get to Stephen King's The Boogeyman, which came out in 2023. It's directed by Rob Savage, who also did the movie Hosts, and written by the writers of A Quiet Place.

[00:00:26] The synopsis is,

[00:00:28] Two sisters grieving the recent death of their mother without receiving much support from their father, a therapist who is dealing with his own grief, must face a supernatural entity that feeds on the suffering of its victims.

[00:00:44] This was a first time watch for me. Up until recently, I didn't even know that it was a Stephen King short story.

[00:00:55] And that was really my main interest in wanting to watch it.

[00:01:00] I didn't know much about it, aside from it being, I guess, a classic look at the idea of a boogeyman.

[00:01:09] Which, despite its supernatural elements, its look at the fear of kids being afraid of what's in their dark closet at night or what's under their bed,

[00:01:26] it feels totally earnest and authentic with capturing how even myself felt when I was a kid.

[00:01:35] It didn't feel put on or overdone.

[00:01:40] But in this case, there actually is a monster in there.

[00:01:44] And it was all toned down. It was understated.

[00:01:49] The overarching message, I would say, is dealing with grief as well as parental neglect.

[00:02:00] Like the synopsis says, the father, who is not necessarily a bad guy, but he's dealing with the loss of his wife.

[00:02:09] So he can't really even help himself.

[00:02:14] Everyone is broken apart throughout the narrative and they're all having to deal with things in their own ways.

[00:02:19] And for the boogeyman himself and how he fits into the story, he seems to represent grief taking over someone or a group of people.

[00:02:35] For example, there's the visual of every house that he's infected.

[00:02:41] And there are weeds and roots growing all over the walls and the floors.

[00:02:47] The houses themselves are shrouded in darkness.

[00:02:54] Spoilers here.

[00:02:55] When he is destroyed, all of that burns away and the houses come back to life.

[00:03:01] It does feel slightly similar to what I was talking about with Gerald's game recently.

[00:03:11] But that's more so talking about you not dealing with your past trauma and that catching up with you later.

[00:03:19] Whereas this is more when grief happens, just because you process it at a certain moment.

[00:03:27] That doesn't mean that it's going to go away immediately.

[00:03:30] I saw Rob Savage's movie host a while back.

[00:03:37] I don't remember that much about it, but I remember liking it all right.

[00:03:43] The direction in this is surprisingly strong.

[00:03:47] Like it's very well shot.

[00:03:50] And there's few sources of light at all.

[00:03:53] It's mainly just dim light fixtures here and there candlelight.

[00:03:58] It got better as it went along at first.

[00:04:01] I was a little underwhelmed by that.

[00:04:04] And maybe even by the end, it doesn't get too dark, even for me, to be visually compelling.

[00:04:12] But one of the strongest aspects in the storytelling is the inclusion of the Boogeyman was, for good reason, always kept in the dark.

[00:04:24] He's never able to leave the shadows.

[00:04:27] You only see him in little glimpses.

[00:04:30] His eyes glow.

[00:04:33] It's deliberately paced.

[00:04:37] Although on that point, the movie's only like 90 minutes or so.

[00:04:44] It feels longer.

[00:04:47] Not to say that's inherently a bad thing, but because this story is so thin in terms of that overarching narrative.

[00:04:59] The unusually slow pace of everything sometimes helps build the mood and the suspense.

[00:05:08] But the third act especially, I found that it was starting to drag a good bit.

[00:05:15] I knew what was going to happen, even though I knew nothing about this story.

[00:05:20] I was checking my phone.

[00:05:22] I was seeing how much time was left.

[00:05:25] Character wise, there's not that much going on.

[00:05:30] It is a short story, so it's not like there's endless amounts of backstory and history like in a lot of Stephen King novels to flesh out those characters.

[00:05:40] They're all your basic teenager who gets picked on, who's misunderstood.

[00:05:46] You know, a grieving father who's disconnected.

[00:05:50] The innocent younger daughter who is vulnerable to everything.

[00:05:55] I don't think I've seen Sophie Thatcher in anything, at least not to my recollection.

[00:06:03] I really like Chris Messina a lot.

[00:06:06] He's a great character actor, can do pretty much anything.

[00:06:12] One choice that was very clever in adding suspense was the younger daughter walking around with that luminescent ball in her hand.

[00:06:22] And whenever she would see a dark room or dark space to, I guess, be an early warning system, she'd roll the ball.

[00:06:32] And you would follow the ball as it went in there and then it would light up that room.

[00:06:37] So you never knew what was going to be in there, if anything.

[00:06:42] The scene at the therapist's office when they're in the dark room with the red light that flashes.

[00:06:49] And the younger daughter sees the boogeyman crawling up towards the ceiling in the corner of the wall.

[00:06:57] When the father of the other family that you meet shows up and has that, I guess, reveal of what the boogeyman is and then that house itself is cursed later.

[00:07:11] The scene on the couch at night when the younger daughter sees the boogeyman when she's playing video games and she hides in the couch and the boogeyman crawls around her.

[00:07:26] One thing that was sort of odd in terms of logic is the widow of the other family.

[00:07:36] When you meet her, she's randomly in the abandoned house that her family used to be in.

[00:07:44] And she has a gun and there are all these candles around.

[00:07:50] You meet her again, there's more candles and she's still there.

[00:07:55] I'm thinking, do you live here?

[00:07:58] Even though there's no semblance of life.

[00:08:02] Are you coming to this location from somewhere else?

[00:08:08] I don't need there to be some deep backstory to her, but still was a little off.

[00:08:16] Oh, and also the friend group was pretty terrible.

[00:08:21] And there was no repercussions, especially the blonde one.

[00:08:25] Like she was terrible to her.

[00:08:27] I'm like, why are you still inviting this girl to these parties and events, whatever?

[00:08:35] It's a movie I wish that I liked more.

[00:08:38] And there were stretches that I was really enjoying it.

[00:08:42] But then just as many that brought it down.

[00:08:47] That one is a heavy three out of five.