#MovieReview: The Boogeyman makes big-screen debut

The Boogeyman is well-made standard horror fare but will fail to frighten lovers of the genre.

Helmed by one of horror’s most exciting young directors, Rob Savage, the film carries little of the energy that made his previous outings Host and Dashcam sleeper hits.

Host, a Covid-19 artifact which centred on a haunted Zoom seance and Dashcam, which followed a found-footage style story via livestream, were both formally daring.

Your mileage may vary on their overall success, but at the very least they were interesting.

As often happens however, Savage was plucked from relative Indie obscurity, given a studio budget, recognisable actors and a well-known story, only to make his most straightforward film yet.

Is horror a genre better served outside of the studio system, where notes from executives ask for broad appeal rather than risks? Almost definitely.

Based on a 1973 short story by Stephen King, the central evil force in this film is perhaps the most pervasive of all in Western cultural mythology.

‘The Boogeyman’ has become shorthand for anything scary that is lurking in the shadows and has terrified millions of kids in the 50 years since.

It should have been the perfect opportunity to mine a shared cultural experience for scares, but instead Boogeyman ends up as a series of well-worn tropes and plot beats.

There is no denying the quality in craft however, and Sophie Thatcher (of Yellowjackets fame) is good in the lead role.

And there is certainly a place for this kind of easy-entry horror movie which was once a staple of cinema programming.

Boogeyman will no doubt be a solid choice for teenagers on nervy first dates and for late night watching at sleepovers.

But it falls short as a must-see for those who have been tracking Savage’s career to see what he could do with a larger budget.

Good enough if unremarkable, one can only hope it pushes Savage back to a place where he is forced to improvise rather than settle.

Rated 16 for Violence, Language and Horror.
2.5/5.

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