After scoring two respectable hits (well, one hit and one highly divisive feature, but this is me talking, and I think they were both very good) while the industry around him was busy scrambling to deal with a once-in-a-lifetime epidemic, director Rob Savage has now stepped right into the mainstream with a Stephen King adaptation. Knowing what happened last time a promising new talent made their kick-in-the-door announcement with a King feature, I’d like to say that I’m keeping my expectations in check… but honestly, I really wanted to like this. And yeah, I do, but only like it.
The main thing that works about this film is its presentation, showing Savage still holding onto all that previous experience in making the most out of very little when it comes to production values. Most of his approach to horror here banks on the use of lighting, similar to David F. Sandberg’s approach to Lights Out, along with a lot of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them subliminal shots of the main threat hanging in the background. It’s certainly a creative way to go about things, and it helps bulk up the film’s thematic elements.
Then there’s the script, initially drafted by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods of the first Quiet Place and 65 fame(?) and polished off by Black Swan co-writer Mark Heyman. It has a similar structure to a Mike Flanagan story in how it frames the supernatural elements strictly as a visualisation of the very real psychology of the main family, along with echoes of King’s musings on how important it is to come to terms with the darkness of the world a la Pet Sematary.
The way it deals in the central idea of the Boogeyman shows a lot of understanding of how children process trauma, and makes for a solid foundation that is built upon by the light-centric visuals. It emphasises the idea of the Boogeyman, both as creation in the imaginations of children and as very real threat in-universe, as something that exists to fill the gap where something else should be. In-story, that something is closure concerning the death of Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair)’s mother, which their therapist father (Chris Messina) keeps putting off talking to them about. Through that, the Boogeyman’s use of darkness to obscure itself shows how alike the two are. Darkness, as it is understood scientifically, doesn’t really exist; it’s just a name we give to the absence of light, much like how cold describes the absence of heat.
However, where someone like Flanagan would be able to balance those two aspects of the story, the supernatural horror aesthetic and the familial drama, this ends up leaning more on the former than the latter. As good as the performances are (the actress playing Sawyer was also Guppy in We Can Be Heroes, so I felt a definite firing-up of fraternal instincts to protect this child), there’s this odd coldness concerning their characters, both on their own terms and when conversing with each other. If I had to guess, I’d say this is a side effect of Beck and Woods’ writing, seeing as 65 from earlier this year showed that there are cracks beginning to form in how they approach family trauma in relation to genre cinema. This admittedly works better than 65, since this doesn’t feel like two different films clashing with each other, but there’s still a feeling that this isn’t a complete picture.
Then again, that might be because of how much different this is from Rob Savage’s previous work by design. Where Host and even Dashcam worked because they sought out to make the most out of what was available, be it access to actors, sets, practical effects, or just time in general, this being the fairly typical studio horror fare it is isn’t nearly as special. I still hesitate to say that this is bad in any major way, as it is still works very well as a horror flick (Savage’s knack for not wasting on-screen time holds true here). But I can’t say I’m expecting to remember it as strongly as Host or Dashcam or, quite frankly, any of the other horror films I’ve already looked at this year.
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