The Horror Show
The Boy
by William Brent Bell
For fans of The Walking Dead, seeing a Lauren Cohan film is a must. If you’re a Maggie fan that is, otherwise you probably shrugged when you saw the trailer for The Boy and moved on. While The Boy brings nothing extraordinary to the horror table, it does entertain and, for the most part, kept my attention throughout… especially during the last act.
Set in the English Countryside, this film follows Greta, an American girl who takes a job as a nanny while an elderly couple goes on holiday. Greta thinks she’s lucked out with this high paying babysitting job but once she arrives at the couple’s home, she finds that their son is, in the style of Pinocchio, not a real boy. Instead of saying “thanks, but no thanks,” Greta decides that the money is too good to pass up and asks herself “how hard could taking care of a doll for a few months really be?” With a strict set of rules, the couple leaves for their vacation and Greta soon finds out that the doll, named after the couple’s departed son Brahms, isn’t just any ordinary doll when supernatural things begin to occur around the home.
There’s quite a bit of mystery in this film. Greta is a character built upon tragedy; on the run from an abusive ex, and just looking for something to fill the void that he horrendously created. Brahms is, well, a doll, but a doll that indeed causes chaos in the home and moves around when no one’s looking. We’re led to believe that this is the spirit of a child, and ghost children in most movies are one of two things: playful or evil as hell. There were a few moments while watching where I was able to suspend disbelief and honestly say to myself, “maybe this is a movie where instead of the ghost being the evil entity, it’s actually helpful.” It does seem as if though Brahms grows quite attached to Greta, and when she finds herself in danger later on in the film, she begs him for help and he follows through… to an extent. Greta figures out eventually that things aren’t at all what they seemed and that’s when things really start to get fun. I’m sure the avid horror fan can figure out the twist rather quickly but for those of you that are just looking for a movie to give you the serious creeps, I don’t want to spoil it.
Many scenes are just Greta and Brahms, and it’s a good thing that Lauren Cohan is a) nice to look at, and b) a great actress, otherwise I think the film would have bored me to pieces within the first thirty minutes. There’s a slow build but I think the payoff is worth it. The ending is a bit cheesy but overall I found it fitting, and the scenes we get with other characters like Malcolm the grocer (played by Rupert Evans) help to explore the history of Brahms and his family.
If you’re looking for a fun ghost story type film then check out The Boy. It’s not your run of the mill supernatural movie, so it at least breaks up the monotony of what the horror community has been given as of late.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
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