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'The Boy': Latest attempt to make a creepy doll movie
A scene from The Boy in which Greta Evans (Lauren Cohan) is staring at the doll named Brahms that has a tear running down its cheek
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span class="caption">A scene from The Boy in which Greta Evans (Lauren Cohan) is staring at the doll named Brahms that has a tear running down its cheek. Turning a childhood plaything into a menacing character has became a common storyline in horror movies and Brahms, the title character in The Boy, joins Chucky from the Child's Play series and Annabelle from The Conjuring and its spin-off Annabelle as a doll that comes to life. (Photo courtesy of Lakeshore Entertainment)
Turning a childhood plaything into a menacing character has became a common storyline in horror movies and Brahms, the main character in The Boy, joins Chucky from the Child's Play series and Annabelle from The Conjuring and its spin-off Annabelle as a doll that comes to life.
The movie starts with a young American woman who goes to England to escape from her abusive boyfriend. The woman, Greta Evans (Lauren Cohan from The Walking Dead TV series), landed a job as a nanny to Brahms, the 8-year-old son of a rich old couple, the Heelshires (Jim Norton and Diana Hardcastle), who live in a gothic mansion in an isolated village.
When Evans arrived at the mansion, she learned that Brahms was actually a porcelain boy-sized doll with a white face, black hair and wide brown eyes. The doll represents the couple's grief as they lost their real boy 20 years earlier.
Desperately needing a vacation, the couple leaves Greta alone at the mansion with warnings that she must obey some rules, including to never leave Brahms alone, read him bedtime stories, play loud music and kiss him good night.
"Be good to him, he will be good to you. Be bad to him...." says Mr. Heelshire prior to leaving the mansion, before being cut off by his wife.
Then, the thrills slowly begin.
Alone at the mansion, except for an occasional visit from the grocery deliveryman, Malcolm (Rupert Evans), strange things begin to happen as items suddenly disappear or mysteriously move. The doll also reappears in different places and positions every time she breaks the rules. After Malcolm shares terrible details about the Heelshires' disturbing past, Greta realizes why she was chosen to take care of Brahms.
As a psychological thriller, the first hour of The Boy is a bit sluggish, but moviegoers should get ready to be surprised by an abrupt turn at the end of the movie.
There are a number of horror movies with good twist endings, such as M. Night Shyamalan's The Village and The Sixth Sense, as well as Alejandro Amenabar's The Others. Unfortunately, The Boy's version feels more like an anticlimax.
Cohan, who never played a role in a horror movie and this time acted as a heroine struggling to save her own life and Malcolm's, offered a quite convincing performance, although she probably could have explored her role more deeply.
However, The Boy features a clever cinematography that suits well with the film's vaguely melancholic set. Acknowledgement should also be given to the writer Stacey Menear and the director William Brent Bell for trying hard to get out of using horror clichés. (kes)(+)
