Review of The Boy (2016) by Mark H — 06 Mar 2016

I went into The Boy with low expectations. After movies like Dead Silence (a terrible film), and in the 80's Child's Play (a decent movie), and in the 70's - Magic (a fine, if odd, film with real chills and an eerie plot that stays true to itself the entire time.

In Magic, the doll isn't haunted, or real, or alive, or contains a small alien. It's simply a twisted manifestation of Anthony Hopkins' mental illness, and it's done pretty well). So, after so many years since we've had a respectable movie about a spooky doll, I went in assuming this movie would be pretty bad, maybe a bomb.

It wasn't a bomb, until the final act. For the first hour, I was intrigued and enjoyed the creepy atmosphere and wondered where the story was going. Was Brahms dead? Was the doll haunted by his evil spirit (which is what probably should have happened) or was something else going on in the huge mansion? The acting is fine, the plot is decent and the trailer is very good.

But the rules, which seem SO important in the trailer, are all but forgotten in the film. They are hardly important at all. There is no mystery here for Cohan to solve. At least, she does a poor job uncovering one.

The rules should have had enormous weight and tremendous consequences if broken. They don't. Cohan ignores the rules almost from the start to little effect. Then, the twist. There are a half dozen films with this plot twist in the past few years.

I wanted something more difficult to explain, something either supernatural or beyond our physical possibilities. Something that stayed with me and left me baffled and puzzled and mystified after the film ended.

That didn't happen It was headed in that direction for an hour, then downshifted into conventional horror and took the easy, and routine way out. This movie has been done before, I just didn't know it for the first 2/3rds, and during that time, I enjoyed myself.

I suggest turning off the movie at about the 1:15 mark. It's a decent film until then.