Oogie Boogie

This one doesn’t gamble, however. (Spoilers)

The Boogeyman is a film adaptation of the short story of the same name by Stephen King, originally published in Cavalier magazine and then collected in the anthology Night Shift. It concerns the mythological creature that’s haunted children in cultures all over the world. It has many names and is commonly believed to lurk primarily under the bed or in the closet. It’s also unrelated to the 1980 horror movie of the same name, which released two sequels, or the Boogeyman trilogy.

Source Material

You read the original short story here if you don’t have a copy of Night Shift. I highly recommend reading it because I’m about to spoil the hell out of it. It’s about a guy named Lester Billings recounting how the Boogeyman killed his three children to a psychiatrist, Dr. Harper. Except when he goes to make another appointment, Lester discovers the office empty, and Dr. Harper was the Boogeyman in disguise the whole time.

“The Boogeyman” is one of my favorite Stephen King short stories because it’s a story you probably need to read at least twice to get the complete picture of. A close reading of Lester’s dialogue shows him to be racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, and abusive. His “love” for his family is also more than a little questionable, even before he recounts moving his final child into a separate bedroom so that the monster will go for the weaker target. 

Adaptation

In the film, David Dastmalchian plays Lester. His prejudices are absent, and though still slightly defensive, he is much more cordial than in the story. With director Rob Savage discussing how Lester would be a “caricature in the wrong hands” and crafting unlikable but empathetic characters, I expected Lester to keep most of his negative characteristics.

Chris Messina is Dr. Harper, who’s given the first name of Will. In this version, he’s also not the Boogeyman and has been given more of a backstory. He now has a wife named Cara (Shauna Rappold), who recently passed away, leaving Will to raise his two young daughters, Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair), by himself.

I’m not sure if I’ve gone over this before, but I’ve taken a class on adaptations, and for the purposes of this review, a gross oversimplification of it was you need to make adaptations your own. So much so that a classmate wanted to title their final essay “Adaptation: The Biggest F**k You To The Original Writer” (I and several others said they should do it). So there’s nothing wrong with that.

Plus, at 12 pages, screenwriters would have to make significant alterations to “The Boogeyman” to bump it up to something feature-length. Exceptm if the entirety of the short story is going to be in a single scene in your movie (more or less), why not change the names and pretend your movie is something original? Unless it’s for that Stephen King brand recognition.

Mental Illness

Instead of Lester, the protagonist of the movie is Sadie. In addition to the titular monster, she’s also dealing with a more personal struggle. Her mother’s death has hit her hard. Except, isn’t her father a psychiatrist? Well, yes, but you know what they say about the cobbler’s children and their shoes, right?

At one point, Sadie starts to tell Will about how ever since Cara died, it feels like she’s been walking around with extra gravity. He quickly cuts her off and says she should discuss that with Dr. Weller (LisaGay Hamilton), the family psychiatrist, because he would rather not deal with it. As a shrink, you’d think he would know that bottling things up is not a great idea. Of course, it is always easier to give advice than follow it.

Befitting a story that centers around psychiatry, the Boogeyman has been turned into a monster that serves as an allegory for grief or a similar mental illness. Such as Mr. Babadook (Time Purcell) in The Babadook, Diana Walter (Alicia Vela-Bailey) from Lights Out, or whatever the hell that thing from Smile was.

The Boogeyman also takes on a few characters from Pennywise, as it’s explicitly stated to prey on those hurt and vulnerable, either out of sadism or due to feeding off of negative emotions. Additionally, with its long limbs, stooped posture, and webbing, the Boogeyman is a very spider-like monster in this version, more so than how it’s described as being in the story.

Of course, the Boogeyman’s mimicry of other people is a lot weaker than Pennywise’s and even the creature in the short story. It seemingly doesn’t have the ability to put on a “mask” to disguise itself as a human being, remaining in the same form for the entire film. And while it’s able to duplicate people’s voices, it’s much less convincing.

The Ending

The end of the film sees the Harper family seemingly kill the Boogeyman. With the aid of Cara’s ghost (I love how she gets to do something despite being a Disney mom), the family is able to set the creature on fire. Then there’s an epilogue where Will is shown opening up in therapy. As they leave, Sadie hears Dr. Weller’s voice calling her, and those familiar with the short story know what that means.

The closet door in Dr. Weller’s office is open because the creature’s not actually dead. Except there’s no nasty twist where Sadie gets dragged off to her doom at the last minute. Instead, she closes the closet door, telling the real Dr. Weller that she’s fine. Cue the credits, set to the surprisingly jaunty tune of “Burning Love” by Elvis Presley.

In other films, this would have been a cheap ‘it’s not really over’ type ending, but I like it here. It’s reflective of how grief doesn’t just go away. It’s something that stays with you, with some days being better than others. Though not exactly the same, The Babadook ends in a similar manner.

My Response

The Boogeyman was initially planned for a Hulu release but was switched to theatrical following positive test screenings. Unlike Evil Dead Rise, which was in a similar situation with HBO Max and received mostly positive reviews, critical reception for The Boogeyman has been more mixed, though leaning towards the positive end of the scale. A recurring criticism is how it goes over well-treaded ground with its grief metaphor.

While that is true, The Boogeyman has several things going for it that make it worth watching. It has a good atmosphere, even if the film is too jump-scary for some people. It has a good cast, with Thatcher, Blair, Messina, Dastmalchian, and Marin Ireland (who plays Lester’s wife, Rita) giving it their all. And most of all, it has a heart. If interested, you should also check out the short film based on the story.