2023’s latest horror entry, The Boogeyman, is based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name and picks off the story after the book’s protagonist’s unraveling and death. The film focuses on the Harper family and how the titular monster haunts them after Lester somehow passes it on to them.
The Boogeyman is an ancient creature that feeds on grief, a raw emotion replenishing its life source. After Lester and Rita Billings lost their first child to SIDS, the monster latched onto them, reaping fear and feeding off of it in a vicious cycle till it killed their remaining children.
The Boogeyman was connected to Lester when he visited his therapist Will and sensed the doctor’s hidden grief after losing his wife a month ago. A new cycle began after it killed Lester. It targeted Sawyer first because fearing the big bad monster in his closet is a cliched child’s fear, and that’s exactly what the hungry creature wanted.
It soon entered Sadie’s dreams and fed off them both, and Will’s continued denial about everything only provoked it to sink its fangs deeper and faster into the Harper family. We don’t often see its true form, only glimpses in the little light, but its spider-like feature and big eyes are an interesting literal euphemism.
The emotion of fear and terror are often characterized by widened eyes, and its spiderlike characteristics can be owed to how the creature likes dark and moist places. Its power to mimic the voice of its prey’s loved ones and lure its prey into traps where it can feed on them slowly by rotting them with fright first is a good explanation for how it looks.
Rita explains its aversion to light and confirms its true fatal weakness, much like an arachnid, is fire, which the family uses to kill it in the end. The Boogeyman is a metaphor that came alive, explaining the effects and dangers grief and trauma can cause in the mind of any human and how destructive it is for a family if left unchecked.
The film is a treat to all psychological horror genre fans since the straightforward plot and underlying metaphors are exciting to watch unfold and even more interesting when analyzed.
The Boogeyman is currently in theaters since it premiered on Friday, June 2, 2023. If this movie seems right up your alley, book your tickets now, and don’t forget to comment on Cine Dope about how you rate it!
About The Boogeyman
The Boogeyman is a 2023 American supernatural horror film directed by Rob Savage from a screenplay by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mark Heyman, based on the 1973 short story of the same name by Stephen King. The film stars Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair, and David Dastmalchian.
It’s about a psychiatrist, where a man named Lester Billings talks to the doctor about the “murders” of his three young children, describing the events of the past several years. His first two children died mysteriously of apparently unrelated causes when left alone in their bedrooms. The only commonalities were that the children cried “Boogeyman!” before being left alone, and the closet door was ajar after discovering their corpses, even though Billings is certain the door was shut.
The Boogeyman was released in the United States on June 2, 2023, by 20th Century Studios.
Source: Screenrant
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