There is something about the darkness that is as compelling as it is repulsive. Something primal and vibrant about the fact that in that empty space of black could be anything or nothing. It is the box of possibility both full and devoid of all things.
We fear the dark because it takes away what for most of us is our primary sense and forces us to rely on the rest to compensate.
We are drawn to the dark because it is the possibility of danger that is so thrilling.
We don’t WANT to find a monster, human or otherwise, but that there COULD be one exhilarates us.
Makes us feel alive.
Why do we ride roller coasters?
Why do we skydive?
Why do we do the things that are fun, sure, but are also dangerous?
Because we want that thrill of surviving.
That is what the dark offers as soon as we turn out the light.
THE BOOGEYMAN is only the most recent adaptation of a Stephen King work but it’s an effective one. The film takes what was a slight short story about a father who may or may not be responsible for the death of his three children, and it uses that as a jumping off point to tell a story about loss, grief, and the terror in the dark.
BOOGEYMAN is the story of a home-based psychologist working through the loss of his wife and trying desperately to deal with his grief on his own as his two daughters try to come to terms with their own heartache. When a man with a shadowed past comes to the father in the hopes of unburdening himself and sharing his own sad tale the family finds itself suddenly the targets of something very dangerous.
BOOGEYMAN is a wonderfully creepy horror film that works because it knows enough to keep the focus on the family and not the ‘boogeyman’. It keeps the grief to the foreground and lets the actors, all of them wonderful in their parts, use that to inform their fear.
And BOY, the fear.
I have seen a lot of horror movies.
A lot, a lot.
I don’t scare with movies because, well, they are movies, but this one freaked me out, to be sure. The creature design, the way it moves, and how they use it all work together to create an uneasy feeling. There is also the fact that I really LIKED these characters and didn’t want them to come to harm. That’s how good these actors are. They feel as if they are genuinely grief stricken.
The movie is well filmed, is really well scored, and does some great things with the darkness. I really dug the score as the film got into the climax and things got really intense. It worked very well.
It isn’t perfect.
There are some very ‘movie’ moments in it, moments where you say – come on! – but that doesn’t derail the film. The fact too is that, humans do a lot of things IN REALITY that I question so, seeing movie people act oddly doesn’t really phase me anymore.
It’s a shame that this film isn’t really hitting with people because, having seen some of the recent hits, I think this is far superior. I think it’s FAR better than SMILE (which I liked but had an awful ending) and BARBARIAN (which I also liked a lot but which was far more head scratching for me when it gets to the WHAT of it all than this film). I am hoping that it will find its audience at home, where folks can watch with the sound up, and lights down, and really just give in to the film.
Fair warning, it’s not an easy watch as it does deal with the deaths of children and hits that point immediately. If you are touchy about that subject, walk on by. For the rest, it’s a really good, really creepy movie along the lines of what the prestige horror films of today are. Not perfect but very well done and memorable and definitely worth seeing.
4 out of 5
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The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 