The Starlight Journal

As children, many of us were afraid of the dark. The Boogeyman takes this fear and exploits it for all it’s worth, crafting something that at its best was something quite terrifying.

It’s shocking to me how my relationship with horror movies has evolved in just the past six months alone. Most of my life I had a disdain for the genre, we just didn’t click, either due to being too scared or disliking the cliches and cheap tropes that are commonplace in some of the genre’s worst offerings. However, I can’t explain why, but something clicked in my mind recently, and I’ve been on somewhat of a horror kick that has defined my 2023. I’ve seen more horror films in the theater this year combined than I probably have in my prior 24 years on this Earth, and while slashers are my preferred horror subgenre, I do really love a psychological nightmare that leaves you terrified when you turn off the lights to go to bed that night. Trailers for this movie had me intrigued, not just because the film was littered with Star Wars alumni and Star Wars makes up more than 50% of my thoughts on any given day, but the atmosphere of the film, relying on the use of lighting to elicit most of the scares, hooked me.

The film’s greatest strength lies in its two leads. Sophie Thatcher and Vivien Lyra Blair, of Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi fame respectively, are super engaging as a grieving pair of sisters haunted by dark forces. At just 10 years old, the young Blair continues to show she is an absolute powerhouse, immediately getting you to care about these siblings in danger as most of the buildup towards the titular Boogeyman monster is through her young eyes. Her take as a young Leia Organa in last year’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series was one of my favorite additions to the Star Wars franchise, and she continues to impress me with her talent beyond her years. This kid is going to be a superstar. Sophie Thatcher also shines as a girl dealing with both unresolved grief over the loss of a parent, while also battling with her sanity as she begins to realize her little sister’s fears of what lurks in the dark perhaps aren’t just in her head after all. The two of them steal the movie, to the point where nothing else really matters.

As most of the film’s scares take place in darkness, it leads to several terrifying moments throughout, fully capitalizing on those fears of the dark, even if you’re someone like me who’s never dealt with those fears. Choosing the shroud the monster in darkness for the majority of the film, barely getting a good look at what is terrorizing our protagonists is a classic horror trick, but it works well for the most part. Light working off darkness to produce chilling moments are some of the film’s best scenes, specifically scenes in a therapist’s office and a basement that had me squirming in my seat the most. Patrick Jonsson’s excellent score greatly heightened moments of fear, as well as the more emotional moments between the family. The film also handles grief and the loss of loved ones in a mature, heartwarming way. The love of this family makes this more than a simple movie of a supernatural monster terrorizing two sisters.

Unfortunately, any time the movie tries to go outside the realm of the relationship between the two sisters, it falls flat. There are several scenes that deal with Sophie Thatcher’s high school life after her mother’s passing, which are no more than your standard horror movie bullies being shitty for the sake of being shitty, getting no comeuppance by the film’s end. Any character or plot point outside of the main family just feel like tropes, needing to be there to fill out the plot. Had the film taken place solely in the Harper family home and leaned fully into the supernatural home invasion portions of the movie, it may have worked for the better.

But I can’t discuss this movie without talking about the true scariest part of this movie, which was my theater experience seeing this movie. Good fucking lord. I somehow ended up in the theater where that one group that won’t shut up the whole time was the majority of my packed audience. Screaming, swearing, running around the theater, cackling during the quiet, somber moments of the film so I can’t connect with what I’m watching at all, just an offense to all five senses. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe theaters do need to go away after all. Had I known I was walking into a playground, I would’ve stayed home, or just watched Across the Spider-Verse again. For this reason, I really couldn’t enjoy the movie because there was no way of separating the movie from the worst theatergoing experience I’ve ever had.

The Boogeyman utilizes its environment to craft a decent horror story, and is worth seeing off the performances of Thatcher and Blair alone, although if you walk into a bad theater, run for the hills.

The Boogeyman is now playing in theaters everywhere.

The Starlight Journal is a new project of mine I’ve been wanting to get off the ground for a long time now. If you missed my review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, you can check it out here. If you are interested in reading more of my thoughts on movies, I journal every movie I watch on my Twitter and Letterboxd accounts and would love it if you’d join the fun.