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The Boy

The Boy: Occasionally Scary, Often Creepy, Mostly Silly

  • Diana HardcastleJett Klyne...
  • Horror
  • William Brent Bell
reviewed by
Marija Loncarevic
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The Boy: Occasionally Scary, Often Creepy, Mostly Silly

From Chucky in Child’s Play to the Clown doll in Poltergeist, there’s nothing there’s nothing quite as creepy as silent doll coming to life as a sort of a blood-thirsty monster. Sadly, the The Boy is not as scary as you its premise promises and, although relatively high on the creep-front, it doesn’t fully realise its ambitious ideas and get to the end without stumbling over.

The plot tells of Greta Evans (The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan), who in escaping an abusive relationship decides to leave her home in Montana, U.S.A, heads to rural England, where she’s to work as a nanny for elderly couple, Mr. Heelshires (Norton) and Mrs. Heelshires (Hardcastle) at their country house to care for their eight-year-old son, Brahms.

However, when she gets there, Greta is shocked to learn that Brahms is no ordinary boy, but in fact a life-size porcelain doll.  At first, Greta is taken back by the discovery and thinks that she’s part of some sort of prank, but she quickly realises that the pained-looking couple treat the doll as their son and even provide Greta with a strict set of rules that she must follow if she is to care for him well. Naturally, it doesn’t take long before a series of strange events begin to occur around the house when the Heelshires leave her to go on their well-deserved break, forcing Greta – along with the help of potential love interest, Malcom (Evans) – to look into Brahms’ troubled and shady past.

While there are a couple of genuinely creepy moments of terror to recall, The Boy mostly relies on its mood – impressively restrained at first and unsurprisingly threadbare towards the end  – and the predictable jump-scares to indeed make you jump nonetheless. Turning what is often a refreshingly subdued and an atmospheric film into a dreadfully insipid story of a creepy life-size porcelain doll and its predictably helpless nanny – Cohan is not as terrible as one might think – the suspense surrounding Brahms is conveyed in a relatively convincing way. 

However, the sheer ridiculousness that unravels within some of the scenes takes the shine off the film, so to speak, even inciting an unintentional laugh or two. This is no more apparent than with an equally ridiculous third-act twist, which seems motivated only by setting up a sequel.

Like This? Try

Child’s Play (1988), Annabelle (2014), Dolls (1987)

360 Tip

Lauren Cohan’s first ever horror movie. 

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