The Boy (2016) Review

Yo, this movie is really dumb. Like, you kinda expect it to be really dumb going into it because it's a spooky doll movie and spooky doll movies don't exactly have the best track record *COUGH ANNABELLE COUGH*, but I tried going into this with an open mind and what that resulted in was me still laughing at how bad this movie was along with the 3, yes 3, other people who were in the theater with me. If this movie does anything well, it brings people together to collectively laugh at it. I give you.....THE BOY

SPOILER WARNING: THE DOLL DOES SOME SPOOKY STUFF

So in this movie, Maggie from the Walking Dead once again is forced to put on an American accent, but this time it's even worse because the movie takes place in freaking England so why? But that nitpick aside, Lauren Cohan plays a girl named Greta who is tasked with babysitting an elderly couple's "son" when they go off on holiday. Spoiler alert: they're not going on holiday, they're actually going to kill themselves by putting heavy rocks in their pockets and willingly walking into the ocean? Like, that's a really bad way of doing that but okay whatever. So their plan is to leave Greta with their son, who if you couldn't figure out is a porcelain doll the size of a regular 8-year old boy. His name is Brahms and boy oh boy is he quite the little troublemaker. See, the real Brahms is dead (wait, no he's not, but more on that later) because of a fire over 20 years ago that his parents started in an attempt to cover up the fact that Brahms was a little brat who bashed a girl's skull in. Anywho, the old couple makes a doll of Brahms so they can have something to take care of and he comes with a set of rules that you have to follow, which are kind of implemented in the movie, but not really until the last act so you kind of forgot about them already. But anyways, this doll is kinda creepy but at the same time, it always has this look on it's face like you just lied to it but it knows you were telling a lie.

Oh really, Felicia? 

Alright, back to the story. Greta gets spooked by the doll moving around while she's not looking and some grocery delivery boy gets involved too and they start doing tests to prove that the doll actually moves while you aren't looking and they celebrate when they finally prove it like freaking scientists just discovering a new species of ant or something. So, there's also this subplot where Greta reveals that she ran away to England to get away from her crazy abusive ex-boyfriend who has been stalking the crap out of her over in the States. So he finds out where she's at in England and he goes there and threatens her so that she'll come back to the US with him and then after all that, that's when the climax of the movie happens. Douchebag boyfriend smashes the Brahms doll and then the house starts shaking and then the real Brahms bursts through the wall and he's a grown adult wearing a turtleneck sweater and a mask of the Brahms doll face. He's super tall and gangly and just really really not scary at all. So they have a nice chase scene through the walls of the house where real Brahms has been living all this time, sometimes coming out to move the doll around, and in the end Greta stabs him with a screwdriver and her and grocery boy get away while douchebag boyfriend gets himself shanked in the neck with a piece of the broken Brahms doll. And just before the credits, we see that Brahms isn't really dead, he survived being stabbed somehow and he's in the walls again, gluing the doll back together. One thing I give this movie credit for: it didn't have a cheap out jumpscare at the end like I expected it to. It's just a slow zoom in on the doll's cracked face. I fully expected real Brahms and his burnt up face to jump in front of the screen during it, but nope. 

Lauren Cohan, upon seeing this movie's RottenTomatoes score

So is this movie any good? Lol nope. Imagine every single horror movie cliche you can think of. There's a good chance that all of those cliches are in this movie. It does nothing original. If you've seen any of the Chucky movies, then you've seen this movie, except this movie is far worse than any of those. The characters are absolutely unbearable; every scene where Greta talks to the grocery boy is just cancer. They have absolutely no chemistry. What makes this worse is the fact that the acting isn't half bad. When good actors are given bad scripts, then it's always a recipe for disaster. The scares are extremely predictable, you see them coming a mile away. She slowly looks at a painting on the wall while music slowly builds? Oh, something's gonna jumpscare through the painting. She slowly approaches the doll and turns it's head to the side? Oh, it's definitely gonna move and do a jumpscare. She's in the wall and then she looks through a crack in the wall and we shift to first person view? Get yourself ready for something to run right in front of her face. This is where this movie fails as a horror movie. You know when literally everything is going to happen. A good horror movie is able to build suspense and give you a scare without you knowing when it's going to happen. I'm not talking about a jumpscare coming out of nowhere like the infamous poptart in the toaster from Silent Hill Revelations, I'm talking about something like the ghost on top of the wardrobe from The Conjuring. An already creepy scene where you're expecting something to happen, but it comes completely out of left field and catches you off guard. That is how you do a proper scare and this movie has no idea how to accomplish that. 

Brahms is also sad about Beth, Maggie. You're not alone.

Alright, should you go see this movie? Probably not. It's really boring and really dumb. You've seen this environment before: it's a spooky house with a dark attic and no cell service and it's prone to thunderstorms. This movie MIGHT be scary if you've never seen a horror movie before but for someone like me, I was super bored. The only thing this movie has to offer is that it is laughably bad. If you see it with a group of people, chances are you'll all find humor in poking fun at it. However, that's literally the only good thing about it. Just save yourself the trouble and never watch this garbage. I give The Boy 2 creepy dolls out of 10. Just don't.