The Boogeyman

A truly mind-blowing amount of Stephen King’s works have been adapted to film and television. My impression that he’s the most adapted living author seems to be correct, according to various internet lists. He’s on the list of the most adapted authors ever, although nowhere near the top of those same lists (that’d be The Bard). If instead of counting each adaptation separately, you were to count just how many works have been adapted at least once, I’d bet he’d be close to the top. He’s just so incredibly prolific, and it seems we get at least one or two new film a year, and 2017 seeing four. And all in all, they have a pretty good track record: along with a shocking amount of absolute classics (Carrie, The Shawshank Redemption, and Misery, to name a few), a bunch are pretty good, like The Running Man and It and The Mist. It’s kind of amazing to me that so many of his ideas lend themselves so well to at least a passable movie, especially given that he’s so often writing about some abstract evil. Granted, at some point, I’ve no doubt he started writing with the movie adaptation in mind. Still, it results in a pretty remarkable showing.

But they can’t all be home runs.

The Boogeyman primarily follows Sadie Harper (Sophie Thatcher) as she’s trying to adjust to her mother’s recent passing. Events are set in motion when Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian) shows up at their house going on about how some…thing killed all three of his kids, before he himself is killed in their house. Afterwards, Sadie’s younger sister Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) starts talking about a monster in her room. Given her fear of the dark, it’s initially brushed off, until Sadie starts seeing it, too.

Despite the skepticism of Sadie and her dad (Chris Messina), the audience has no such doubts. Early on, we see something skitter out of Sawyer’s closet and under her bed. But what makes it freaky is how we only ever catch the slightest glimpse before it’s gone. More often, we know its presence because of an open door or a messed up rug or a noise or something, since all we can see is a blur at the edge of the screen. It feels ever present, so you’re always searching the frame for evidence. This makes for an intensely creepy experience. It’s the terror of the unknown: how can you face your fear if you can’t see it? In that way, it reminds me of Hereditary, with shapes in the background and eyes in the dark and the knowledge that the characters are always being watched.

Unlike Hereditary, though, The Boogeyman can’t keep it up, and we begin seeing the creature more clearly and frequently starting around the act 2 climax, carrying through the rest of the film. Which is a shame. As gnarly as the thing’s face is in one particular scene which will stick with me for a bit, seeing it before the climax drained most of the fear out of the theater.

That creepiness is the thing the movie most had going for it, so its drop-off results in a less engaging final act. The plot isn’t particularly interesting or unique, and many of the dramatic beats feel overdone and cliched. There’s a whole subplot about Sadie’s former friend group at school that never goes anywhere. The grief metaphor is ever-present, and becomes more explicit and clunky as the movie progresses. It appears the narrative throughline they wanted to focus on is Sadie’s strained relationship with her dad, as he never really talks or listens to her, especially about his feelings and her mom. Along with being rote, these threads don’t effectively weave together, so it feels like they bloat the movie rather than flesh it out.

They even left some opportunities to scare on the table. From its first appearance, we know the monster can imitate voices. And it does do so a number of times. But it never uses that as a trap, like you’d expect it to. The characters are all too busy being scared to be fooled. We also get some implications it can shape shift, which isn’t really ever used. While it’s a well designed creature, it’s not well utilized.

Still, the creepiness of the monster is enough to carry you through for a bit. As is how quickly they make you afraid of doors which are just slightly open. You’re trying to guess where things are going, but it’s probably simpler than you expect. It wears its themes on its sleeve, and leaves the monster pretty much unknown, positioning it as simply a force which may have been with us since pre-history. There’s no deeper evil here, no overarching plot or anything. It’s just a scary bedtime story.

That stretching is always a risk when adapting a short story, and you can feel it here. Combined with the weak attempts at a dramatic plot, and it just feels unsatisfying. There’s not much to unpack or marvel at, especially once they drop all the lengths they went to hiding the monster. While far from the worst King adaptation, it’s also miles away from the best. So although I wouldn’t recommend it, there are worse ways to spend your time.