The Boogeyman Review

The Boogeyman is an adaptation and elaboration on a Stephen King short story of the same name. Dr Harper, is a beloved psychiatrist and father coping with the recent death of his wife and raising his two daughters. The troubles with the Boogeyman begin when a distraught Lester Billings shows up at Dr. Harper’s home office begging to talk to him about the deaths of his three children. Little does Dr. Harper know that upon inviting Lester into his office a dark and sinister being would follow him in, who soon finds a comfy spot to call home in the closet of Sawyer, Dr. Harper’s youngest daughter.  Soon after Lester’s departure Sawyer starts seeing and hearing things coming from her closet at night. At first nobody believes her but as time passes and the darkness takes hold the reality of what is tormenting her comes to light and is more terrifying than anything they can imagine.  

Fans of the original story, will find that the movie stays relatively faithful to the short story, but the only thing that the movie and story have in common other than the title character is the interaction between Dr Harper and Lester Billings recounting his story of the fates of his three children. In the movie Lester serves as a catalyst to bring the boogeyman into the Harper family’s lives and the events that follow. Once Lester has left the building the movie takes on a life of its own and follows a new storyline in continuation to the original story.  

The movie starts off strong and with a bite, a warning for anyone that may be sensitive to violence against children, there are a couple of intense scenes. David Dastmalchian does an excellent job playing Lester Billings, you can sense his despair and desperation to prove that he is not crazy and that it was something supernatural that murdered his children. The actresses that play Sadie and Sawyer really carry the movie. Sophie Thatcher of yellow jackets fame adds life to the character of Sadie, she stirs up feelings of heartbreak as we watch her navigate the grief of losing her mother while surviving high school as an outcast teenager. Vivian Lyra Blair stands out as the youngest daughter Sawyer that is being tormented by the Boogeyman,  gaslighted by her therapist and family into believing he does not exist and that it is a manifestation of her grief. The director utilizes jump scares at well calculated moments and exploits the fear of the dark and what lurks within. The boogeyman is much more frightening in the shadows and in quick glimpses, the more I saw him the more I became desensitized to him. The creature design is creepy but looked too CGI to be scary to me. They do not break any new ground, but it is a fun and creepy movie that plays on our fears that there might be just something more than clothing lurking in our closet. After this movie I definitely will look at all cracked closet doors suspiciously and close them.