The Boy is a 2016 horror movie directed by William Brent Bell and starring Lauren Cohan as American nanny Greta Evans and Rupert Evans as Malcolm, a local grocery delivery guy and a love interest. Below is my short The Boy (2016) movie review
When greta arrives in the United Kingdom home of strange couple, she becomes uneasy when she sees that she will be taking care of a porcelain doll named Brahms. They present a list of rules she has to abide by all revolving around the doll and his comfort. She ignores this at first, but quickly changes her mind when a series of seemingly supernatural events start to occur. She goes along and follows the rules until she meet Malcolm who delivers the groceries for the week to her home. He gives us more information on the family and Brahm who was an “odd” boy. All of this is revealed in increments while Greta and Malcolm grow more close to each other.
The best way to describe the movie is as a big “Twilight Zone” episode. It takes its time to be developed and the few characters that are present are good actors and do a good job in making their character act and think in a logical manner. This is actually a bit odd because people in these types of movies are horrible and always tend to act in a way that makes the audience pissed off and wish them to die as soon as possible. Greta and Malcolm are likable enough to make us root for their survival.
On top of this, Greta is also fighting an internal battle as she is fleeing from her abusive ex. She constantly goes back and forth in trying to stay calm in a rough situation as well as keep it together and not think about all the things she went through before arriving to the house. By the end, everything seems to be going against Greta, but her will to survive keeps her going. It shows a good character development when she finally stands up for herself and fights everything that has kept her down and prevented her from living a normal life.
For the majority of the movie, the cinematography is very well done. It maintains a dark Gothic-like atmosphere with enough creepy shots to keep us guessing who is doing it all. However, by the end not everything will be explained with few things left for us the audience to infer. It is a slow build story that reveals clues on who is behind the creepy events one at a time. There is a bunch of human interactions to make the main characters likable and relatable. This gives us a feel that the director knows exactly how to set up a good story. Everything has a meaning and each part of the story is revealed at the right moment. This is so the audience doesn’t become too bored with what can be considered an unoriginal premise. (killer doll a la Chucky)
Turn off your brain to get the full enjoyment of this movie (will prevent you from pointing out plot holes). It has couple of creepy scenes, some heavy themes, good characters, and pretty good acting throughout. It paces itself well and doesn’t try to hard to do anything revolutionary. This is a movie for non-horror fans.
The Boy (2016) movie review
