Stephen King’s THE BOOGEYMAN Scares up the Big Screen

On the heels of a tragic loss, a fractured family is tormented by a mysterious creature with a hunger for kids. Based on the short story by Stephen King, The Boogeyman is a well-crafted adaptation that offers decent frights with a touching family drama.

The film opens with the subject of the original short story but quickly shifts focus to the Harper family. Having recently lost their wife and mother, they are all suffering immensely but are attempting to gain a sense of normalcy.

The oldest daughter Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) is struggling with her return to school, uncomfortable with the stares from her classmates and the [attitudes] of her frenemies. Her little sister Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) has seemingly channeled her fears into an intense phobia of the dark.

While they try to open up to their father, Will (Chris Messina)—ironically a therapist—has shut down. Unable to process his wifes’ loss and be there as a pillar of support for his children.

But when a man shows up unexpectedly to ask Will for help, claiming a monster killed his children, he unknowingly brings the same terrifying entity into the Harper home, and it begins to feed off their despair.

Directed by Rob Savage (Host), and co-written by Bryan Wood s, Mark Heyman (A Quiet Place), and Scott Beck, The Boogeyman is an unnerving thriller that plays well with what’s lurking in the dark. While it doesn’t do anything drastically different from films of a similar nature—you could even argue it’s a bit derivative—it holds a compelling story with ample tension to keep you hooked.

More often, the frights lie in jump scares, though not necessarily a bad thing, as quite a few felt unexpected and fresh. But there are still many suspenseful and disturbing moments outside of that. The tricks played with mimicking voices or the subtle shadows and eye reflections were instances where you feel really unsettled.

We’re only shown mere glimpses of what the creature is, never giving away too much of it. There were missed opportunities to play around with this more, but I did appreciate the level of mystique to a certain degree. Because when we do finally see more, it’s pretty terrifying.

But it’s not just the scares that keep you engaged, as the family dynamics in this film feel really powerful. At first, the boogeyman is dismissed by their father as a reaction to their mother’s passing. But they don’t overdo it. Instead, the focus is on bringing the three of them together and rebuilding their bond after such a great loss — and it’s especially moving due to the three leads delivering fantastic performances.

Though The Boogeyman could have amped up the frights a bit more at times, they did a great job adapting and expanding on the original short story. It’s an enjoyable horror-thriller that offers great creature design, decent scares, and characters you’ll continue to root for.

The Boogeyman is now in theaters