Creepy dolls in the horror genre is nothing new; from
The Twilight Zone’s “
Living Doll” episode to
The Conjuring’s lame spin-off
Annabelle we’ve been subjected to countless iteration of the scary doll motif. In the film
The Boy takes the sub-genre to an even deeper level lame than we got with
Annabelle or that terrible
Poltergeist remake. Director
William Brent Bell
knows how to create an atmosphere of fear and dread, but then he tosses
that all aside for cheap jumps scares. Worse is that two of those jumps
scares are of the “
It was just a dream” variety. I haven’t been so annoyed with dream sequences since
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Though to be fair
The Boy came out before the
BvS movie, but this film could have been improved vastly if one of the dreams had
The Flash traveling back in time to warn us to not watch this movie.
*Spoilers ahead*
The movie begins with young American Greta Evans (
Lauren Cohan)
arriving at an imposing English mansion where she has accepted a
babysitting job. The job is to take care of eight year old Brahms while
his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire (
Jim Norton/
Diana Hardcastle),
take off for a much deserved holiday. There is only one small problem;
Brahms is not a real boy but a life sized porcelain doll. It’s at this
point a rational person would be trying see how fast they can get that
cab back but not our Greta, she just rolls with it as Mrs. Heelshire
informs Greta of all her responsibilities in caring for Brahms; read to
him, dress and feed him, and play loud Gregorian music. So right off the
bat writer
Stacey Meaner
hands us a premise that is incredibly hard to swallow, and as the movie
continues it just gets harder and harder. Who in their right mind would
stay and do this job? Let’s check off the red flags shall we?
1) Creepy gothic manor in the middle of nowhere.
2) Disturbing family portrait.
3) No cell service.
4) This fucking doll.
Consider
the suspension of disbelief broken. Sure we get a backstory that Greta
has fled Montana to escape an abusive ex-boyfriend, but is this the only
job on the planet? I don’t care how much they are paying her for this
gig because even if there isn’t anything supernatural going on it still
means your employers are little bit crazy. Who needs that shit on top of
a stalking ex-boyfriend? The movie does establish quickly how Greta is
not the most level headed thinker; when the Heelshires depart for their
holiday, after Mrs. Heelshire creepily whispers into Greta’s ear, “
I’m sorry.”
She once again fails to take the hint and call a cab. During a stormy
night she discovers that someone has cut a lock out of her hair, stolen
her necklace while she was showering, and thenshe hears what sounds like
a child’s laugh and footsteps in the hall she goes to investigate. And
when she finds the ladder to the attic mysteriously down what does she
do?
She investigates the dark attic while wearing a towel.
It just gets worse from here. Local grocery delivery man Malcom (
Rupert Evans),
tells Greta that the Heelshire’s lost their son on his eighth birthday
in a tragic fire, and that the doll appeared shortly afterwards. She is
also told that Brahms was an “odd” boy and it is rumored he could have
been responsible for the murder of local girl. It’s also noted that the
fire happened the same day as the murder, just before authorities had a
chance to question Brahms. Does Greta now ask Malcom to help her pack
and drive her to the airport? No, she hangs around this spooky ass house
as objects continue to apparently move on their own, and a child’s
voice on the telephone asking her to, “
Come play, pretty Greta” and “
Why won’t you follow the rules?”
Brahms even leaves her favorite sandwich outside her door. It’s at this
point that Greta comes to the realization that somehow the ghost of the
dead child inhabits the doll, and it’s because he is shy that no one
sees him when he moves. Yeah, that makes sense. So Greta decides to take
the job seriously and begins to treat the doll like real child, and she
follows the list given to her by the Heelshires, a list which
mysteriously appeared next to the doll.
Rules:
- No Guests
- Never Leave Brahms Alone
- Save Meals in Freezer
- Never Cover Brahms’ Face
- Read a Bedtime Story
- Play Music Loud
- Clean the Traps
- Only Malcolm Brings Deliveries
- Brahms is Never to Leave
- Kiss Goodnight
But they completely forgot:
- No Bright Lights
- Don’t get Him Wet
- Never Feed Him After Midnight
It’s
at this point I suspected that Greta had actually gone nuts from shock,
but soon she enlists Malcolm in her insanity, even getting Brahms’ help
proving that the he is in fact alive. Greta treats this all with a
giddy sense of fun, kind of like the way the mom in the original
Poltergeist
reacted to the furniture moving on it's own, but in that case a dead
kid and voices on the phone weren’t a factor. Malcolm even tries to
float the idea that they don’t know for sure if this spirit isn’t
malevolent, and that odd little Brahms could have been a murderer. Greta
pooh-poohs this as her sweet porcelain Brahms would never hurt her.
Cue idiot ex-boyfriend.
How
did this jerk track her to England all the way from Montana you ask?
Well turns out he banged on her family’s door, telling them he was sorry
and wanted to send her a letter apologizing for the whole abuse and
miscarriage that resulted. Do her parents offer to mail the letter for
him? No, they give him her address in England so that he can continue to
stalk her and violate the restraining order. Either her parents are
dumber than she is or they want her dead for some reason. Regardless
Cole (
Ben Robson),
her psychotic ex-boyfriend, shows up unannounced and tells her that he
has plane tickets for the both of them to return to Montana the very
next day. Brahms is not cool with that.
*Massive Twist Spoiler Ahead*
Despite
Malcolm showing up, giving her an easy out, Greta doesn’t ask for his
help, doesn't call the local authorities or do much of anything aside
from offering Cole a pillow and a blanket. During the night Cole is
woken by dripping blood as someone has used dead rats to write "
Get Out"
in blood on the wall above him. Cole rightfully freaks out and accuses
Greta of writing the message; while Greta tries to explain to Cole that
it is the doll’s doing Malcolm arrives, (he was waiting outside in his
car like a useless twit), and the two try and convince Cole that the
doll is alive. Cole does the next sensible thing, he smashes the
porcelain dolls head to smithereens. The room erupts with weird
rumblings as the walls begin to shake, and just as Cole presses his ear
against a large mirror and says, “
Shhh, there’s something…” the mirror explodes in the asshats face.
Enter the real Brahms.
Yeah, turns out that Brahms (
James Russell)
didn’t die in the fire all those years ago but has been living in the
walls for the entire time, and he just sneaks out to move the doll
around to vicariously live through his porcelain avatar. **sigh** Up to
this point the film had been a fairly ridiculous horror film, one that
at times managed to give a person goosebumps, that is when it wasn’t
going for cheap jumps scares, but this twist reveal is just plain
terrible and not even all that original. Back in 2009 there was an
episode of
Supernatural where a supposed
haunted house turned out not to actually be haunted, but that there was a
crazy person living in the walls. So not only is this script full of
unbelievable stupid characters it’s not even all that original. The film
then tries to turn itself into a chapter of
Friday the 13th as the masked killer stalks Greta and Malcolm through the house.
Well he’s got the mask, but he’s missing the machete.
The
problem here is that Brahms isn’t some unstoppable supernatural force
like Jason Voorhees was, he’s just some dude that’s been living in the
walls for twenty years. Malcom and Greta repeatedly knock the guy down
but they constantly run off instead of just hitting him a couple more
times. The film then has the audacity to rip-off the scene from
Friday the 13th Part 2 where the
Final Girl
disguises herself as Jason’s mom to get close enough to deal a fatal
blow. In this film Greta just tells Brahms that she is willing to be his
babysitter and then she stabs him during the goodnight kiss. She, and
the surprisingly not dead Malcolm who we last saw being pummeled by
Brahms, drive off into the sunset while the camera tracks through the
house to reveal Brahms is alive and is restoring the doll.
It’s cute that they thought this could be a franchise.
This
is a well shot movie, and the director does manage to give us some
genuine scares, but the script is so unbelievably stupid that whatever
goodwill the actors and director managed to earn is completely blown
during the last act. It’s no surprise that this film was released during
the January dumping grounds along with
The Forest.
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