The Boogeyman

A Formulaic Script Ruins a Scary Premise

I wanted to like The Boogeyman (2023). The monster, or demon, or whatever it may be, is the villain in a timeless bedtime story that convinced me to avoid staying up too late when I was a kid. I read the Stephen King short story in college and expected the movie to be similar in plot. There are parallels, but the movie is very much a “Hollywoodized” version.

The movie could have been a dozen other horror films, albeit with a different title. There are jump scares aplenty, sure, but they’re all jump scares I’ve seen countless variations of, and in far superior films. The monster, if that’s what it actually is, still emerges from closets at night to “take” the children who can see it, unbeknownst to skeptical parents who refuse to believe there are supernatural forces going bump in the night.

The premise is promising, but the film falls flat. At the end of the film (spoiler alert) we find out that the boogeyman is just another cgi monster that can be killed with a match and some gasoline.

This is a by-the-numbers horror film that is content to stick to tropes.

5/10