Review: The Boogeyman

Director:  Rob Savage

Stars:  David Dastmalchian, Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina

Ditching the screen-life stylings of his prior features (lockdown’s Host and the divisive Dashcam), Rob Savage takes a turn at the helm of a Hollywood horror picture, bringing in a very loose adaptation of a Stephen King short story for 20th Century Studios. But what could have felt like a belated retread of gimmicks seen before across Ouija, Lights Out and so many Insidious and Conjuring films is given a blessed dose of depth thanks to an enriching focus on character work.

The Harper family is grieving. Some months before we meet them they lost their matriarch in a car accident, leaving father Will (Chris Messina) bereft and emotionally distant and daughters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) fragile. In the world of The Boogeyman this means all three have their defenses lowered and are prime for supernatural attack. They are ‘high risk’, if you will.

Will earns his living as a psychotherapist working from an office in the family home. When a wandering survivor of some terrible ordeal, Lester (David Dastmalchian), stumbles to his door as a stricken walk-in, he brings with him a darkness that spreads through the family home like an infection. Something is sucking the life out of people… but only when the lights are out.

While the opening stretch paints sensitive Will as the potential lead, The Boogeyman ultimately tips to teenage Sadie, whose stilted return to high school after her recent bereavement sets a tone for much of what follows. Having instilled a sense of hurt and lived-in reality for the family, Savage’s film is notably downbeat for a slice of mass-consumption horror; an outlier for the genre at the opening of silly season. This is a blessing to the piece overall. What relieves in the main is the restraint. Sure, there are things going bump in the night, and all manner of teases thanks to the creature’s fondness for creaky doors, but the strong work from all three actors and the script’s dedication to them pay dividends. The film almost starts to feel like a bookend for the dreaded ‘elevated’ subgenre. What The Babadook ‘began’, The Boogeyman might end.

Alas, alack, the final act. While The Boogeyman remains reasonably strong, conventional behaviour reasserts itself. The less-is-more approach that powered us through the spritely build-up is dispensed with for a CG creature that doesn’t match the power of our own imaginations and, along the way, the film picks up plenty of tropes from recent horror highlights, rekindling a sense that – while well-mounted – Savage’s story is a little too derivative.

Still, the positives are the headline here. When its working against the trend for hyperactivity, The Boogeyman conjures enough atmosphere and paranoia to feel old-school. John Carpenter old-school. And then there are the performances, particularly the breakout work from Thatcher, ably backed by her younger co-star.

A less frivolous trip to the flicks than expected, just don’t expect the wheel to get reinvented.