The Boogeyman Director Had To Add Recovery Time After The Monster's Reveal
One of the summer's biggest horror movies is on the horizon in the form of "The Boogeyman," which is adapted from the Stephen King story of the same name. It hails from director Rob Savage, who made waves a few years ago with his made-for-nothing found footage horror flick "Host" during the pandemic. Now, Savage is back taking on source material from a master of the genre, and it sounds like he did a damn good job of translating the material (read our review here). The reveal of the monster at the center of this story actually scared the s*** out of audiences in early screenings to such a strong degree that they actually had to re-edit the movie to accommodate the reaction.
The filmmaker recently spoke with Empire in anticipation of the film's theatrical release this weekend. Savage explained that the reveal of the titular Boogeyman worked like gangbusters in test screenings. The only problem? The crowd reactions were so over-the-top that vital information was running the risk of being missed. Here's what Savage had to say about it:
"The first time you see the creature, the audience screamed so loud, and then immediately started talking with their neighbours and chattering, that they completely missed the next lines. So we had to re-cut it and build in 45 seconds of padding, just so they didn't miss any vital information. I'm a huge jump-scare guy. That's the most gratifying part, when you see that play with an audience and you can feel them taking the bait, and then you feel the jump land."
Fear of the unseen
The first time we see the titular creature of "The Boogeyman" is in young Sawyer's room. She is woken up in the middle of the night by her closet door suddenly and violently opening out of nowhere, before a creature runs towards her and hides under her bed. When she (of course) looks down and checks, a horrifying dark monster that kind of looks like one of the dinosaur mutants in the original plan for "Jurassic Park 4," runs at her, crawling around like a spider. We never really see the full body of the creature, which is part of why it's so frightening.
To design the creature, director Rob Savage looked toward H.P. Lovecraft, hoping to deliver something "stark and striking" but which needed to mostly "bleed off into the shadows" while the audience filled in the blanks. The giant, deer-like creature from the British horror film "The Ritual" also provided an inspiration for the primordial, old, decayed look of the Boogeyman, and it shows. This is not a grand, elegant monster. Instead, it is a battered, ugly creature that looks beaten up by the centuries.
The fact that we don't really know what it is, and we don't really see enough to do more than speculate, is the brilliance of "The Boogeyman." Like the best horror monsters, like the shark in "Jaws," or the xenomorph in "Alien," the fear of the unknown and unseen is as great as the fear of the creature itself.
The mark of an effective jump scare
When making a horror movie, getting effective jump scares like that is an absolute must. It's part of the communal experience, and that helps put a lot of butts in seats. Remember, "The Boogeyman" was originally produced with a streaming release on Hulu in mind. However, outstanding test screenings convinced Disney to shift its strategy and give this one a wide release in theaters, right in the heart of the summer movie season. And it was actually Stephen King himself who helped ensure that the film wouldn't be relegated to streaming.
Given that it seems Savage produced a crowd-pleaser here, that shift seems like a wise move. Horror has been the hottest thing at the box office over the last couple of years, with movies like "Smile," "M3GAN," and "The Black Phone" serving as recent success stories. Disney undoubtedly stands to make a bigger splash (and more money) by letting this monster scare audiences in crowded theaters. Maximum impact, maximum profit.
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods ("A Quiet Place") penned the screenplay for the adaptation alongside Mark Heyman ("Black Swan"). The cast includes Sophie Thatcher ("Yellowjackets"), Chris Messina ("Birds of Prey"), Vivien Lyra Blair ("Obi-Wan Kenobi"), Marin Ireland ("The Umbrella Academy"), Madison Hu ("Bizaardvark"), LisaGay Hamilton ("Vice"), and David Dastmalchian ("Dune").
"The Boogeyman" hits theaters on June 2, 2023.