I'd like to start off by saying despite the 5 out of 10 rating, I do recommend this movie, for reasons that will be made clear if you decide to read this before seeing the movie...
For the first, I'd say, 75 minutes of The Boy, you think you know (or at least I did) where the filmmakers are taking you... sort of. It seems like a kind of mashing together of the sort of English rural-secluded countryside of an older horror film like The Innocents (and that's to the movie's credit), and the 'doll is here and what is it *doing*) of Child's Play. I'm sure there were some other influences for this work - one of which I didn't know about until I was told of it much later on social media - but this starts off as a kind of batty (in a good way) horror story about an older couple who leave a woman (Lauren Cohan) in charge of taking care of Broms: a little 8 year old boy who happens to also be a doll. And nevermind that he's a doll - he'll need lots of comfort and caring to, such as reading to Broms and making sure its tucked in at night and fed and played classical music and what the hell is going on here?!
This has an intriguing premise and I was kind of surprised by the quality of the filmmaking (at least for a January movie, when in recent memory you get schlock like The Devil Inside or even boring dreck like The Forest from the start of January), and the director and cinematographer and editor all pay attention to pacing and setting the mood and not really relying too heavily on jump scares, which are the death of horror cinema. There are a couple, but it's not the name of the game - it's more about 'where is Broms now, what is he doing, or what will Greta do next with this thing, and is it all in her mind?' It turns out the latter isn't true, and it seems like you can figure the movie out pretty easily...
And then the filmmakers do something that is absolutely bat-s*** insane and turn everything on its head in the dumbest way imaginable. As it turns out (and this why I clicked 'spoiler' at the top), the movie really takes a lot of inspiration from a *1970's TV movie* called Bad Ronald (unseen by me, nothing to do with McDonald's fyi), which has the plot description of a perverted teenage boy who lives in the walls of a house after being left behind by his parents (who die) finds new people move in. Um... OK, that may work for that movie, but in the case of The Boy, the reveal of who Broms really is, makes for the craziest logic that I've ever come across for a mainstream horror movie - it combats The Village if you can believe it - and yet it doesn't really earn the brainpower to go back and think 'wait, how does that connect to this and that and... damn it.'
It suddenly turns what's been a not great (there's one story hole with mail that I won't get into here) but interesting horror movie with a solid lead in Cohan into a nightmare. I don't mean that in any positive sense! In the last several minutes it turns into some later-period Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers flick, as Broms - the *real* Broms - has super-human strength despite living IN THE WALLS OF HIS HOUSE and still wears a Broms-doll mask over a hipster beard. It's so insane that you can't turn away, despite the jaw dropping past the floor and down the aisles to the bottom of the theater.
For the first, I'd say, 75 minutes of The Boy, you think you know (or at least I did) where the filmmakers are taking you... sort of. It seems like a kind of mashing together of the sort of English rural-secluded countryside of an older horror film like The Innocents (and that's to the movie's credit), and the 'doll is here and what is it *doing*) of Child's Play. I'm sure there were some other influences for this work - one of which I didn't know about until I was told of it much later on social media - but this starts off as a kind of batty (in a good way) horror story about an older couple who leave a woman (Lauren Cohan) in charge of taking care of Broms: a little 8 year old boy who happens to also be a doll. And nevermind that he's a doll - he'll need lots of comfort and caring to, such as reading to Broms and making sure its tucked in at night and fed and played classical music and what the hell is going on here?!
This has an intriguing premise and I was kind of surprised by the quality of the filmmaking (at least for a January movie, when in recent memory you get schlock like The Devil Inside or even boring dreck like The Forest from the start of January), and the director and cinematographer and editor all pay attention to pacing and setting the mood and not really relying too heavily on jump scares, which are the death of horror cinema. There are a couple, but it's not the name of the game - it's more about 'where is Broms now, what is he doing, or what will Greta do next with this thing, and is it all in her mind?' It turns out the latter isn't true, and it seems like you can figure the movie out pretty easily...
And then the filmmakers do something that is absolutely bat-s*** insane and turn everything on its head in the dumbest way imaginable. As it turns out (and this why I clicked 'spoiler' at the top), the movie really takes a lot of inspiration from a *1970's TV movie* called Bad Ronald (unseen by me, nothing to do with McDonald's fyi), which has the plot description of a perverted teenage boy who lives in the walls of a house after being left behind by his parents (who die) finds new people move in. Um... OK, that may work for that movie, but in the case of The Boy, the reveal of who Broms really is, makes for the craziest logic that I've ever come across for a mainstream horror movie - it combats The Village if you can believe it - and yet it doesn't really earn the brainpower to go back and think 'wait, how does that connect to this and that and... damn it.'
It suddenly turns what's been a not great (there's one story hole with mail that I won't get into here) but interesting horror movie with a solid lead in Cohan into a nightmare. I don't mean that in any positive sense! In the last several minutes it turns into some later-period Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers flick, as Broms - the *real* Broms - has super-human strength despite living IN THE WALLS OF HIS HOUSE and still wears a Broms-doll mask over a hipster beard. It's so insane that you can't turn away, despite the jaw dropping past the floor and down the aisles to the bottom of the theater.