The Boogeyman Review: Classic Stephen King Story Makes for Soft Horror (2024)

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One of Stephen King’s early short stories finally makes it to the screen courtesy of Host director Rob Savage. Yet it’s more amusing than scary.

The Boogeyman Review: Classic Stephen King Story Makes for Soft Horror (1)By David Crow | |

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The Boogeyman Review: Classic Stephen King Story Makes for Soft Horror (2)

In 2005, screenwriter and author Blake Snyder coined the term “save the cat” when referring to the beat in a story—usually very early on—in which a protagonist does something so admirable it instantly engenders audience sympathy and trust. Think Aladdin giving his only loaf of bread to two street urchins in the Disney movie, or Indiana Jones saving Alfred Molina from spiders, even after Molina’s buddy already betrayed him moments earlier, in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

While watching the opening moments of The Boogeyman, this concept popped into my head, as did the realization that there’s a reversal of it. Consider: Audiences as of late have been inundated with horror movies which want you to know immediately they’re playing for keeps, and their titular monster is the genuine thing. Hence the scene where a baby is stolen and sacrificed to the Devil in The Witch and a little boy with a paper sailboat gets too close to a storm drain in It. In Nope, you only hear a child’s begging before the sickening thud. The idea goes back further, too, a la Jaws (1975) and Frankenstein (1931), but horror filmmakers have become particularly insistent these days that they’re prepared to Kill the Kid.

The Boogeyman begins much the same way by introducing us to a young infant girl who’s been tucked in for another restless night of crying by her exhausted parents (David Dastmalchian and Marin Ireland). Woe unto mommy and daddy, however, for they do not realize what pitiless shadows actually lurk in their babe’s closet. Sure enough, before the title card even drops, a leathery, clawed hand wraps itself around the crib, and a sudden shriek hideously stops as blood dribbles into frame.

Yes, writer-director Rob Savage is unafraid to kill the kid in his first Hollywood-produced horror movie. At a glance, it also appears to be a confirmation that despite transitioning to Hollywood fare, Savage is the same subversive voice who made the recent cult darlings Host and Dashcam. And at least when it comes to crafting some tense jumps and jolts, The Boogeyman is very much a glossy successor to those efforts. Yet I cannot help but be taken back to the disturbing opening which insisted it is willing to go there. And maybe it is. But in a film which otherwise is only too happy to play it safe in every other sense, this opening feels less like an insidious table-setter than it does a modern genre box being checked. It’s a beat in a by-the-numbers haunted house flick.

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Based on a short story in horror maestro Stephen King’s Night Shift collection, The Boogeyman (2023) exists as a synthesis of vintage King. In addition to the spectral fear of children in danger, the film reimagines the catch-all term for night terror monsters—the Boogeyman—into something ancient and primal. It’s a beast, a demon, an entity that walks the line between the metaphysical and tactile, and which has apparently existed since time immemorial. And it feeds on the fear of children in the dark.

That’s at least the conclusion reached by Lester Billings (Dastmalchian), who after the opening has become a bereft and forlorn father as he sneaks into the home of psychiatrist Will Harper (Chris Messina). Lester is coming to find a shoulder to cry on, but when he explains to the shrink that all of his children were taken by the Boogeyman, one by one, the doctor is ready to call the cops.

Unfortunately, the police do not arrive before Lester is found hanging inside one of Will’s closets. Worse still, news of this tragedy is just the latest trauma to be inflicted upon his teenage daughter Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and wee Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair), who also has been experiencing night terrors in the dark ever since their mother died in a car accident.

You can see where this is going.

These are the primary elements inherited from King’s story, but Savage—working from a script by Mark Heyman and A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods—expands the tale, making it Sadie’s nightmare instead of her father’s. Sadie is isolated and lonely at high school; the mopey kid with the dead mom, which the mean girls (inexplicably) find hilarious. She is also the one who does most of the parenting for Sawyer every night when the younger daughter insists a monster in her closet is opening and slamming her door. Soon Sadie is also seeing dark shadows move as something undeniable appears to be coming for her and her little sister.

With such an archetypal structure, plot is obviously less important than tone and scares, and on the most basic level, The Boogeyman provides both competently enough. Operating as something akin to a jump-scare delivery system, the picture creates about a dozen well-designed “boos” which will cause viewers to either hold their breath or laugh expectantly, depending on their disposition. Is the thing itself actually scary though? It probably depends on your familiarity with the genre going in.

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As a PG-13 horror flick, The Boogeyman has a decidedly softer touch than Savage’s previous films or, indeed, its eerie opening. Despite featuring a structure that remarkably resembles last year’s creepier Smile, right down to the story acting as a metaphor for trauma, guilt, and grief, The Boogeyman lacks the existential dread or unrelenting despair of that previous work. This distinction turns out to be as pronounced as that between an R-rated picture and one assigned the theoretically more lucrative PG-13.

Despite its sinister premise, The Boogeyman seems a bit spooked in its own right, nervous about rocking the boat or alienating its target audience, which is presumably closer in age to Sadie and Harper than adult horror aficionados who saw Smile in theaters—or for that matter the far more daring PG-13 horror movie about a transmissive evil entity, The Ring.

The Boogeyman is a solid gateway chiller for 12 year olds at a sleepover, and will be the scourge of middle schoolers dipping a toe in the genre. In a darkened theater though, adults might instead find themselves wondering about film scripting theory, or why essentially every set piece is the same: poor little Sawyer is somehow, again, alone in a darkened room waiting to be attacked. (You might even second-guess why characters keep finding themselves in such a situation.)

The acting is uniformly good, with Messina continuing a strong year after stealing scenes from Matt Damon in Air. The standouts though are Thatcher and Blair, with the latter being especially impressive at so young an age at conveying a lifetime of impending therapy bills on her pint-sized face.

Her terror is never fully spread to the audience, however. I’ll admit to jumping a few times, leaning forward at others, but like the fake blood pooling behind the next door in a haunted house, you always know what’s coming and may find yourself chuckling along as much as tensing. And for an experience that pretends it’s as grim as that opening, being able to spot the safety wheels is a little disappointing.

The Boogeyman is in theaters on June 2.

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The Boogeyman Review: Classic Stephen King Story Makes for Soft Horror (3)

Written by

David Crow|@DCrowsNest

David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…

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The Boogeyman Review: Classic Stephen King Story Makes for Soft Horror (2024)

FAQs

What happens in the Boogeyman short story? ›

The Boogeyman systematically terrorizes and murders all three of Lester's children, each time in occurrences that look like simple, but tragic accidents. Doctors rule the three deaths accidental, but Lester knows they've really been dispatched by the slimy creature hiding in his closet.

What Stephen King story is the Boogeyman based on? ›

Taken directly from the pages of King's exquisite 1978 debut short story collection, Night Shift, "The Boogeyman" tells the story of one of the most loathsome characters (I don't say that lightly,) I've ever come across, as he and his wife, Rita, are afflicted with any parent's worst nightmare.

What did Stephen King think about the Boogeyman? ›

"Showing him the movie was a really terrifying experience. He said that he loved it and that it terrified him. He jumped and threw his popcorn a couple of times. It's just incredible to think about the amount of times that that man has given me nightmares...

What does the ending of boogeyman mean? ›

The Boogeyman's Ending Real Meaning Explained

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.

What is the main idea of the boogeyman? ›

Analysis: “The Boogeyman”

Woven around central themes such as The Nature of Fear and Guilt as Self-Punishment, “The Boogeyman” tells the story of a man who must grapple with monsters both within and outside of himself.

What is the real story of the boogeyman? ›

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.

Why did Stephen King write about horror? ›

The purpose of horror, according to King, seems to be a sort of catharsis – an externalization of our deepest fears into something fictional and, thus, more manageable.

What is the point of view of The Boogeyman? ›

The story “The Boogeyman” by Stephen King is told from the point of view of a third-person narrator. The point of view switches to the first-person when Lester Billings recounts the past events in his dialogue with Dr Harper, which makes up the majority of the story.

Is The Boogeyman scary? ›

The Boogeyman is an easily forgettable horror movie that struggles to deliver genuine scares or explore emotional depth.

What fear does The Boogeyman represent? ›

The Boogeyman is one of the strongest Tulpas to ever exist, personifying the fear of the dark, of the strange, of the unknown. He has many interesting powers and abilities that somewhat vary with his different moods and appearances.

What does Stephen King's boogeyman look like? ›

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.

What happened to the baby at the beginning of The Boogeyman? ›

Lester goes on to tell the story of how his first child died suddenly one night, after crying about the boogeyman. The cause of death was determined to be crib . Here, the death of a child in the very beginning at least gives the impression that no one - not the youngest daughter - is safe from the .

Who killed Boogeyman? ›

Actually, in the movie it is mentioned that there was another mafia who was called Baba Yaga/The Boogeyman. John Wick was hired to kill him which he obviously did after which he was know as the Boogeyman.

What is the real meaning of Boogeyman? ›

noun. , plural bo·gey·men. an imaginary evil character of supernatural powers, especially a mythical hobgoblin supposed to carry off naughty children.

What is the plot of Boogeyman? ›

What happened to Rita in the Boogeyman? ›

Sadie is contacted by Rita, who needs her help to kill the Boogeyman. When Sadie arrives, Rita attacks her, planning to use her as bait for her trap. The Boogeyman survives the trap and kills Rita. Sadie escapes and realizes her family has returned home.

What is the climax of the Boogeyman? ›

A battle with the Boogeyman ensues, in which it tries to suck the life out of Sadie, but the family fight back and Sadie sets the creature on fire using her mother's lighter and an aerosol can. Eventually, the monster is defeated, and Will, Sadie and Sawyer escape their house, which is now engulfed by flames.

What happened to Lesters' kids in the Boogeyman? ›

When Lester Billings opens up about the deaths of his children, he explains that the first child died from SIDS, but he suspects that "The Boogeyman," what his children called the "shadow monster" in the closet, was actually responsible. After its death, his next two children died within a year of one another.

What happened in the beginning of Boogeyman? ›

"The Boogeyman" begins with a scene we don't often see in horror movies: the murder of a child. A young girl sits up in her bed, startled by a . Lester goes on to tell the story of how his first child died suddenly one night, after crying about the boogeyman.

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