Going into The Boy I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. At first I figured it was just going to be yet another Poltergeist haunted house ripoff that Hollywood just seems to love making over and over these days. Then I came up with an even worse thought. Maybe it was going to be some type of Child’s Play Chucky ripoff. Thankfully it turned out to be a bit more original than that and I actually somewhat enjoyed the The Boy. I’m sure it won’t be 2016’s best horror movie, but I think it holds it’s own by taking the plot in a clever direction.
The Boy is about an American nanny named Greta Evans (Lauren Cohan) traveling to England to take care of a boy named Brahms while his parents go on vacation. When she gets there she meets the grocery delivery man named Malcolm (Rupert Evans) who shows her the kitchen. Shortly after she meets the Hillshires and their young son Brahms. The only problem is that Greta realizes that Brahms is just a doll and the Hillshires are acting as if the doll is a real boy. Greta is a little freaked out by the situation at first but decides to go with it because she needs the money. After a while though things starts to get odd when Greta starts to hear strange things and notices Brahms the doll boy keeps ending up in rooms where she didn’t leave him.
Lauren Cohan is best known for playing the character of Maggie on the hit cable TV show The Walking Dead. I’m a big fan of The Walking Dead so Cohan starring in The Boy is really the only thing that made me sort of excited about seeing it. I was afraid she may not be that good because the movie looked mediocre, but she actually gives a solid performance. I’ve seen a lot of actresses in horror movies fail at being freaked out or afraid and Cohan actually pulls off those elements very well. Rupert Evans who plays the grocery delivery man also does a good job as the character Malcolm who is really Greta’s only ally throughout most of the movie.
As a horror movie it is certainly creepy in an effective way although it also resorts to quite a few modern horror movie cliches. I didn’t find the movie all that scary, but there are some solid scenes that are able to pull off some good tension. The entire movie takes place in and around this big creepy old English house which I kind of liked. That kind of limits the scenery, but the interiors of the house were shot very well. There is something about old people’s old houses that are kind of creepy to begin with. They are especially creepy when they don’t change much over time and still have a lot of old creepy appliances and toys.
Towards the end of The Boy I wasn’t quite sure whether I was going to like it or not. It had been decent up to a point and I thought I knew where it was going. Thankfully the filmmakers threw something at me with the plot that I didn’t see coming. It isn’t anything groundbreaking but I really enjoyed where he movie ended up. Horror movies that come out in the dead movie month of January are usually pretty bad but I have to say that The Boy was at least a decent movie.
Dave’s Rating- ★★★(3) out of ★★★★★(5)
