“I’m your boogieman, I’m your boogieman, turn me on”

Based on a Stephen King short story, and from the director of pants-pissingly scary “Host”, “The Boogeyman” concerns a family, as movies often do. The mom died recently in a car accident, the dad doesn’t really want to talk about it but the oldest daughter really needs to. The dad is actually a psychologist so him refusing to talk about trauma is layers. I don’t know what that meant. But it’s layers.

Anyway one day a man comes to see him, and you’ll realize he’s the man from the opening scene – who’s actually the main character of the short story. He knows nobody will believe him, that this *thing* killed his children and is now tormenting him. Psychologist dad is like “cool, cool, let me just use the restroom real quick” and goes to call the police. While he’s on the phone, other guy wanders around the house – because the dad’s psychology office is in the house. The oldest daughter came home from school early because some HORRIBLE GIRL was just horrible – told her to just “get over” her mom dying already and then accidentally got mayo on older daughter’s dress – which is actually the mom’s dress. So older daughter – Sadie – ran home early.

Sadie hears rustling around in the mom’s paint studio, and finds the guy from earlier has hung himself in the closet.

And that’s where things get worse.

This is definitely a step up from The Exorcist: Believer. I can definitely see how this movie was initially meant for streaming but only released to theaters because of popularity. Like… I don’t know, some movies just have that vibe. It’s like the scares are smaller if it’s a streaming movie. That doesn’t make it bad, it’s just creepier, I guess.

Once again some top notch teen actress horror acting – and not-so-teen from the younger sister, Sawyer. Both girls were actually in Star Wars streaming shows – Sadie’s actress played a character on Book of Boba Fett, and Sawyer’s played young Leia in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show. So in a way them deciding not to have Sawyer carry around a lightsaber like she did in the short story is sad! But moon light ball thing was really cool.

Like “Smile” this movie is like “terrifying murder creature as a metaphor for mental health issues”, but this one doesn’t have any “was that actually the entity or was it just her being crazy” moments. Which is fine – I do love when we’re left unsure of what was the entity and what was craziness, but I’m fine if a movie doesn’t have that ambiguity.

I definitely think this movie’s worth a watch, and if you’ve been here long enough that may have been obvious since I stopped explaining the plot. If I liked it, I usually don’t tell you everything that happened!

This one’s on Hulu, so bummer if you don’t have access to it… legally. Of course we here at the blog that has screenshots where you can clearly see part of “Putlocker” in the logo would never advocate for piracy if you’re too poor to pay for a streaming service. Because that’s illegal! And we would never!

It’s hard to kind of critique this one… I’ve seen criticism online saying it’s derivative of The Babadook and Smile, but it’s based on a short story that was published in 1973. So, aren’t those actually being derivative of The Boogeyman?

It’s sure not the BEST movie but it’s worth a watch.

Notes: There is no onscreen child murder in this film. And there’s a flashing light warning right at the beginning, so if you have photosensitive epilepsy or anything, you may want to skip this.

This movie just like Annabelle Comes Home starts the credits with an absolutely hilariously unexpected song.