Many Stephen King film adaptations have been made over the last five decades. And, well, The Boogeyman is… one of them. King published the original short story “The Boogeyman” in 1973 and later added it to his collection “Night Shift”, which was released in 1978. Director Rob Savage takes the 12-page source material and weaves a horror yarn that starts twisted and creepy before devolving into a paint-by-numbers creature feature.

 

The Boogeyman was co-written by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods (A Quiet Place), and Mark Heyman (Black Swan). With this caliber of writing talent and director Savage, who creatively scared audiences with found footage-esque films Host and Dashcam, The Boogeyman should have been more electric than the final result we received. 

 

The film opens with a tragedy; I will not reveal the details here. We are soon introduced to therapist Will Harper (Chris Messina) and his two daughters, teenager Sadie (Sophie Thatcher from Showtime's Yellowjackets) and the very young Sawyer (Vivian Lyra Blair, who was Princess Leia in last year's Obi-Wan). Sadie and Sawyer just lost their mom and have their grieving processes well underway. This tragedy has brought a new client to Will's office: Lester Billings, played with wonderful creepiness by David Dastmalchian. Lester informs Will about the loss of his three children and wants to seek help from Will. The theme of shared grief and how it can carry darkness is how we arrive at the eponymous Boogeyman.

 

Lester confides to Will that he lost all of his children at the hands of the Boogeyman, making a not-so-subtle request for Will to shut his closet door mid-stride. After another tragedy strikes in the Harper's home, it is clear that the Boogeyman has decided to make the Harper family the next target. The daughters, Sadie and Sawyer, begin to see things and hear things in the darkness, and it isn't too long before they're in a full-on battle with this creature that has infested their home. 

 

The Boogeyman isn't a bad film; in fact, there are a lot of good ideas here. The concept of evil attaching itself to a grieving family isn't original. That's the plot here, but it is done respectfully with satisfying closure. The acting from everyone is exceptional. Thatcher's Sadie is the main character, and she carries this film on her back, through the trenches, and across the finish line.

 

Savage and his crew take a lot of care to bend the cinematography and blocking of shots to emphasize the darkness in scenes. The Boogeyman's kryptonite, as we find out, is the light. Savage's team makes a point to add corners of blackness to the daytime scenes, lending a feeling of dread as if the Boogeyman is never really absent. There are a lot of fun props and set dressings that give off light that the characters use throughout the film to contest with the creature. We only see bits and pieces of the Boogeyman throughout the film's first hour. A hand here, a pair of sinister yellow eyes there. There's one particular shot where the monster appears behind a television screen that had me clapping.

 

Savage fuses the inventive lighting with absolutely incredible sound design to immerse the audience into the subjective POV of the characters when the Boogeyman comes out at night. The first half of this film was genuinely creepy, evoking more of a psyche study of grief. Yes, there are a lot of jump scares that draw the film back a bit. While a more recent trauma study of a horror film, last year's Smile, utilized jump scares at critical moments, The Boogeyman's quick jolts are heavily telegraphed, having little catharsis attached to them. 

 

The last third of The Boogeyman strips away the grim bleakness that was carefully set up in the previous acts. Yes, we finally do get to see the creature, sort of. Since its weakness is the light, we aren't given too much to look at. That takes away the excitement. What we see of The Boogeyman is quite fantastic and gnarly. It has more of an alien look than a folk story creature, which reminds me a bit of the monster from A Quiet Place. 

 

This flick is a suitable popcorn horror if someone wants to kill 90 minutes. Time may or may not, be kind to "The Boogeyman," but I'm putting my money down on the latter. I suspect that the main bone I must pick with The Boogeyman isn't the story but how it's given to us. The idea of a 'boogeyman' as the unseen evil we can't see in the darkness used as a placeholder for our fear of the unknown is certainly nothing new. This concept is thousands of years old, having been told in various forms and fashions on a global scale. This film partners this universal fear with the trauma of losing a loved one. My disappointment is that the special ingredients for a powerful, impactful conveyance of horror were all here. Still, this film plays it too safe, pulls punches, and nose-dives into forgettable territory. I loved the acting, the tension, and the atmosphere, but that ends the list.