The Boogeyman starts off with the most generic setup imaginable for a horror movie which really threw me off in the first half. There's a family with the recent tragic event who is trying to be part of a normal life again. Also the characters were really generic. You had the father who's trying to keep the family close, the young daughter who's still a child, the teenage daughter who was slightly rebellious and can't cope with the death of her mother and of course a character who has more knowledge about the entity and tells our main protagonist about it. The movie also borrowed a lot of scenes from other successful horror movies. The Boogeyman was afraid of light just like in the movie "Lights Out" (2016) and the design really reminded me of the creatures from A Quiet Place (2018) and there was a scene which was almost identical to another scene from the movie Smile (2022). So for the most part of the movie it's really generic and just nothing interesting happens, but towards the third act the Boogeyman is more on screen and I think that that's where the movie is the strongest because I think that the entity itself was the only interesting aspect the movie had up until now. Sometimes less is more but in this case I don't think this is true because I really enjoyed that The Boogeyman was not just some entity but he was a physically threatening creature that was also able to be harmed with for example a shotgun. This made the creature seem more threatening and scary because it physically interacted with all protagonists. The movie felt more like a Creature-Feature than a movie about some evil entity which I really enjoyed since I'm a huge Creature-Feature fan. Even though the movie is really generic and definitely doesn't reinvent the wheel it manages to keep a spooky atmosphere throughout and given it's a PG-13 rated movie I think it's a decent approach because the third act really helped the movie differentiate from other mainstream horror and it's definitely a better adaptation of the boogeyman than the 2005 version. One thing that really bugged me though was that there are several scenes where the light switches are turned off for no apparent reason, well except that The Boogeyman only attacks when it's dark. But then again the movie had amazing visuals and I think that Rob Savage did a great job directing it and it would have been really interesting to see what he could have crafted with a less generic script. I am looking forward to his upcoming movies. [6,4/10]

Remember Boogeyman from 2005 (and its sequels)? This film, based on a Stephen King short story, not only has a very similar title, but it&#39;s not a million miles away in terms of storyline either. It&#39;s slightly better than the 2005 film, but since I gave that one a rating of 1/10, that&#39;s not saying much.<br/><br/>The plot revolves around that old horror movie cliche, the monster in the closet (or under the bed). There&#39;s a nasty creature killing emotionally troubled children, but only after it has had fun scaring them; young Sawyer Harper (Vivien Lyra Blair) will be its next victim unless older sister Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) can do something to stop it.<br/><br/>Totally lacking in originality, The Boogeyman is instantly forgettable, generic, mainstream PG-13 horror that relies on predictable jump scares and loud noises to get any kind of reaction from its audience. The film reminded me of so many films in recent years -- Mama, Smile, The Babadook, Lights Out, to name a few -- with stock characters and an uninspired CGI creature.<br/><br/>Characters behave stupidly, no-one turns the lights on (a crazy woman would rather burn a few hundred dollars worth of candles than flick a switch), and Sadie faces the monster with a hockey stick when she has already seen it survive being blasted several times by a shotgun.<br/><br/>3/10 -- Further proof that they will make a film out of absolutely anything written by King.

Truly, this movie was screwed over with its title. I know it&#39;s an adaptation, but &quot;The Boogeyman&quot; makes it sounds like a bottom-of-the-bargain-bin DVD movie. But while far from original, this is a thoroughly well-crafted, at times thoughtful horror film.<br/><br/>By far, this is one of the most frightening PG-13 movies I&#39;ve seen. Director Rob Savage has a lot of talent, and he wields the camera with style and with care. Excellent sound design and mixing, as well as a smart subdued musical score, build anticipation for each scare and don&#39;t let up the tension once something has been revealed.<br/><br/>The monster is horrifying in its design, but Savage wisely doesn&#39;t show it to us very often, and never really shows it to us in detail. Dark, oppressive atmosphere pervades the screen and it leaves a lot of distressing things to the imagination.<br/><br/>While this isn&#39;t the first film to hold grief or trauma as a metaphor for its monster, it&#39;s done quite well here. The family dynamics in this script are restrained and well-realised, with satisfying thematic payoff at the end.<br/><br/>I have only one major issue with the film, and that&#39;s that the characters seem to easily brush off when they see horrifying things. They didn&#39;t sell the paranoia at all. And at a couple points Sadie finds potential proof of the monster&#39;s existence but never does anything with it. Perhaps there was some material left on the cutting room floor that fills in these gaps, but we may never know.<br/><br/>Still, this is a supernatural scare-fest that&#39;s several cuts above average and I would truly recommend it for anyone who enjoys a decent story with their spooks.