Director Rob Savage’s The Boogeyman is a 20^thCentury Studios release initially developed to go directly to Hulu, rather than a traditional theatrical release. And while I’m about to describe some of the problems I had with The Boogeyman, and why it isn’t very good at all, I want to reiterate how important I find the theatrical experience to be, especially for a movie like this. Horror films need to be seen on a big screen with a crowd of people audibly reacting – screaming, gasping, laughing, etc. Because the idea of seeing a film like this for the first time on your couch at home would rob it of its entire impact, if it has one at all.

Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) are two sisters whose mother has recently died, and they live with their father Will (Chris Messina), a therapist. One day, Will sees a patient who had been accused of murdering his children, but he was not found guilty. He has always spoken of a shadowy, monstrous entity that ‘kills your children while you’re not looking.’ He leaves behind a supernatural entity that immediately haunts this grieving family, that was dealing with enough already.

A lot of The Boogeyman feels kind of hacky. The character design of the big bad is kind of half-assed and silly looking. It’s unfortunate that this film, where a lot of the jump scares kind of work devolves into a direct-to-video Alien sequel in act three. There’s an older female character with a machine gun who gives off massive Laurie Strode in the new Halloween trilogy vibes. And the film’s focus on grief and trauma feels like a desperate attempt to lump itself in with the whole ‘elevated horror’ thing that’s happening right now. 

And despite all of that, this is a Stephen King adaptation. Of one of his short stories, so even a 90 minute runtime feels a bit padded. However, I will give this film credit where it’s due. It puts the character journey above the jump scares, and even when the characters themselves are generic archetypes, that can make a jump scare work more effectively. There’s a couple moments here that really got me in the way they were supposed to. But mainly, you’re just terrified for these two poor sisters, who are already dealing with enough trauma, and now have a murderous demonic creature lurking in the corridors.

Chris Messina is never my favorite thing in a movie, and he isn’t here either! He fades into the background quite often in this movie, which is interesting since a father figure should theoretically be the one to protect his children in a situation like this. He isn’t depicted to be a deadbeat, and he should theoretically be the one who is there for his daughters, especially in the wake of his wife’s death, which is said to have happened fairly recently. But maybe I’m overthinking it. This film belongs to Sophie Thatcher and Vivian Lyra Blair, who are both doing very good work here, despite, well, you know, everything else around them.

Overall, it’s pretty obvious what The Boogeyman is going for, and sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s a bit of a slog. There’s some cool camerawork and some neat stuff done with lighting and shadows. But in the end, it could have aimed a little higher and unfortunately it falls into the category of summer horror fare that you see and forget about within a week. I don’t feel like The Boogeyman was a total waste of my time – I saw it on a very hot 95-degree Friday afternoon after a long work shift, and as an air conditioning delivery device, it works just fine. But there was a real chance here for the film to become something memorable and not as generic as its title. And unfortunately in the end, the film never gets there.