The Boogeyman Review: A Promising Start That Ends in Disappointment

IN boogeyman, Rob Savage, Fear is much more than an emotion. It is also a way of interpreting the darkest corners of the human mind. This is made clear by Will (Chris Messina) when he offers therapy to Lester (David Dastmalchian), a patient terrified by trauma. The script, written by Mark Heyman, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, focuses on the nature of pain in the first minutes. In its individual manifestations and in psychic wounds, it leaves behind.

The director then creates an unsettling atmosphere that allows the plot to address its argument. Through close-ups and the sense that the darkness extends like a real presence, the camera explores the mystery. How the patient describes in chilling detail how the creature killed his children one by one. For Will, the horror of such a circumstance is an illusion.

So much so that it causes him to disconnect from reality and allows you to guess the depth of grief, loss and the horror of absence. Something that, being a widower, is not entirely unknown to him. Leicester, in all his excruciating vulnerability, was the victim of a terror that turned into a physical event. The one who is chasing him is getting closer. For Will, it’s a disturbing look at the blurry lines between sanity and insanity. But he soon discovers that beyond his reflections on the root of adult fears, there is a cruel supernatural layer.

Darkness Eating Monster

Argument boogeyman, based on a short story of the same name by author Stephen King published in 1978, restores part of its literary version when creating atmosphere. Therefore, the opening section of the film focuses on the sense of imminent danger associated with the belief in the existence of evil.

Tortured and looking for help, Lester is a helpless being in the face of a force that threatens him from the darkness. with some resemblance to It’s behind youwritten by David Robert Mitchell, the story explores how fear can fuel the inexplicable being. And, at the same time, give him enough strength to kill.

In time, Will will discover that Lester’s supposed hallucinations are more than just his way of coping with great suffering. Then the threat will be inevitable. Rob Savage manages at least the first half hour, boogeyman adhere to the idea of ​​a mysterious entity hidden on the periphery of reality. In particular, a variant of fear associated with individual experiences. How to escape from a creature that can communicate with the deepest horrors?

New dimensions of fear in boogeyman

Of course, such a story should create a claustrophobic feeling that the lurking entity moves easily in everyday spaces. After all, he lives in darkness and physically manifests through it. Rob Savage, whose film Guest delved into the fear of unusual places, try in boogeyman the same effect.

So he takes an interest in the camera, detailing how the shadows—both physical and spiritual—become a threat around the characters. Will’s house, one of the few places the film explores, becomes a giant trap. Especially after Lester meets a brutal death and leaves behind a dark legacy that he will have to contend with.

In addition, the therapist deals with the intimate anguish of the wife’s death. However, he stays away from his daughters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivienne Lyra Blair), which creates a rarefied atmosphere at home. The moment the supernatural element attacks, boogeyman makes it clear that the child is also a measure of family suffering. But while the original story descends into hopelessness, horror, and emotional agony, its film version turns into banality once its secret is revealed.

An argument that could give more about yourself

scenario boogeyman he fails when he tries to create horror out of common clichés. In fact, the film loses all of its solidity when it leaves the tension of the first part behind and decides to turn to the creature’s sudden appearances and unreasonable jumps. The plot is more interested in generating a reaction with sound tricks than exploring the most intriguing philosophical topics.

Little by little, what seemed like a journey through the supernatural as a manifestation of human emotions turns into a sinister game of cat and mouse. But even from this premise, the plot loses its meaning, preferring to emphasize its main ideas rather than delve into them.

So his final scenes, predictable and disappointing, undermine the director’s attempt at a tension-based production. In the end, boogeyman departs from the original point of view due to the fear he showed during his first stretch. Instead, he explores a cheap useless production. Which affects both its rhythm and its ending, as it lacks the depth of genre exploration that it hints at in its opening scenes.