“The Boy” looked laughable at best in its trailer, with hardly any scares and a tone that seemed almost self-deprecating, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the film. But let’s be real folks, as scary as dolls are, there haven’t been many good horror films made about them, with films like “Annabelle” and “Dead Silence” filling movie screens with much potential, only to be wasted at the expense of cheap scares and cheesy resolutions among themselves. Then, you have the Chucky films, which have their own niche market to them, but focus far too heavily on comedy for them to truly be scary, though not without their own unique merit. What is it about dolls that are so creepy, yet so unable to capture said creepiness on screen?
The hint: subtlety. Something I didn’t expect “The Boy” to have, but surprisingly had in spades.
“The Boy” doesn’t offer many cheap jump-scares that so many modern horror films are riddled with, nor does the film splash the audience with blood and guts to pass off as terror, “The Boy” relies on genuine tension and quiet world building to crate one of the most atmospheric horror film in a while. But don’t get me wrong, “The Boy” is still a B-movie, it just happens to be a pretty eloquent one.
Greta (Lauren Cohan) is an American woman recently moved to the UK to escape a dangerous relationship and she takes employment from a rich family in the countryside named the Heelshire’s (Jim Norton and Diana Hardcastle) as a nanny for their young son, Brahms. When she arrives, she discovers that Brahms is nothing but a doll that the Heelshire’s talk to and treat as if he were a live boy. When they leave on vacation, Greta is left to take care of Brahms by herself, but when she treats him like a standard doll and not that of a real boy, she begins to realize that Brahms might really be wandering the house, looking for more supernatural mischief to cause. With the help of the grocery man, Malcolm (Rupert Evans), they must get down to the bottom of the mystery of Brahms.
Cohan and Evans are really quite good together, with great chemistry together and a nice flow of humor between the two in the downtime of the film. Cohan sets herself high on the bar as a scream queen, really understanding what it takes to put forth a good performance in a horror film without going overboard. It may sound strange, but Cohan has pretty good chemistry with the doll as well, taking an almost motherly figure to him at a point, one that actually comes across as quite sympathetic to Greta’s ordeal in her personal life.
“The Boy” actually has a plot as well, not just placing a creepy doll in a creepy house and calling it a horror film, writer Stacey Menear finds a good stride in the backstory of Brahms and the Heelshire family as well, creating a nice history that exists long before Greta ever steps foot in the house.
The production values of “The Boy” are also spectacular, with director William Brent Bell really having a grasp of the house as a central character in the story as much as Brahms is. The house is old and creaky, without getting too “Crimson Peak”-y in how creepy it really is. The house in “The Boy” is that of a house that could be in your own town or neighborhood, not just that of fairytales and lore.
“The Boy” isn’t perfect, it drags in the middle of the film, meandering a bit too long on Brahms simply moving from one spot in the house to another, which gets a bit repetitive. There’s also a side story with Greta’s abusive ex-boyfriend that doesn’t really work that much. Plus, there are about one too many fake dream sequences in the film that are far too cliché for a movie this subtle.
But get past all of this and the ending twist is one that actually got to me. Typically, I can see twists in movies from a mile away, but I was pretty wrong in my prediction for “The Boy.” I found the final act to be very thrilling and chilling, while never getting too far down the rabbit hole of ridiculousness. The film is visceral and disturbing, without ever pushing its PG-13 rating and without ever feeling constrained by it, “The Boy” simply exists in a disturbing light.
“The Boy” is not the film shown in the trailers; it’s not a stupid doll creature feature that is reminiscent of “Annabelle” and “Dead Silence,” it’s a film that details the effects of grief on a family with death and the fictional manifestations that can come about from it. Subtle and creepy, “The Boy” doesn’t look to blow your socks off with jump-scares and intense chase scenes throughout, but to simply build you up slowly to the finale that really does pay off. There are a number of missteps that could’ve been fixed in the film, but for the expectations that it shattered, I can forgive those just as easily as I forgave the marketing department on this film.
3.5/5
Photo courtesy of STX Entertainment
Directed by: William Brent Bell
Starring: Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, Jim Norton, Diana Highcastle, Ben Robson.
Runtime: 97 minutes
Rating: PG-13 for violence and terror, and for some thematic material.
STX Entertainment, Lakeshore Entertainment and Huayi Brothers Pictures present, a Lakeshore Entertainment and STX Entertainment production, in association with Vertigo Entertainment, “The Boy”