The Boy (2016)

Brainless and oddly familiar at every turn. However it is improved by some reasonable acting.

'The Boy' suffers from 'how American writers think English people speak', I'll get that out of the way first. For example, the grocery boy Malcolm (Rupert Evans) says things like "I'm considered quite charming in this country." Evans is encouraged to use a well-spoken but entirely region-free accent throughout. It's not a huge issue, and UK films are not always accurate in their representation of US characters either. If you can get past that - and there are far worse examples out there - then there is much to enjoy with this.Miss Greta Evans (Lauren Cohan), an American Nanny, travels to a gothic mansion to tend to the needs of an elderly couple's young son Brahms. It is difficult to escape the central storyline in the publicity - the fact that Brahms is a doll initially filled me with reservations. Could such a realisation be taken seriously? Andrew Jones' series of low-budget projects involving Robert the Doll is good, for example, but suffers a little when the prop figure is required to move.There was little need to worry: this is a cracker: restrainedly directed by William Brent Bell at least initially, and written in the same way. Greta is just as incredulous as to the notion of a living doll as the most cynical audience member, and yet when she has reason to be convinced if the reality of its existence, we are too. Brahms is a ghostly looking, handsome doll, sometimes very life-like and often lifeless, as necessary.Greta's willingness to care for Brahms is reasoned by a miscarriage she suffered at the hands of an abusive relationship with a character called Cole (Ben Robson). Cole suddenly turns up at the house demanding Greta returns home with him. He is, of course, exactly the kind of overbearing bully we want him to be - and then we can begin the business of desperately wanting some punishment for him. This is when the pace moves from slow-burning build-up to pure horror. When the resultant manifestation of Brahms reveals itself, the fragile build-up takes a step back in favour of Jason/Michael Myers territory; whilst this doesn't carry the same kind of emotional weight we've enjoyed so far, it is still effective. The finale explains things away and makes sense of it all, but there is a slight disappointment that the spell has been punctured with reality. As a whole, though 'The Boy' works beautifully, far better than I expected it to.

I found this movie on Netflix, read the synopsis and found it to sound interesting and appealing, so I decided to give it a go. Now, I do watch and like "The Walking Dead" quite a lot, but I just wasn't particularly thrilled that it was Lauren Cohan that was in the lead role, because she is not a particularly good actress in my opinion."The Boy" sure did have a good story, right up until the reveal of what is really going on. The movie was genuinely creepy up to that point. But then when it was revealed what was going on, it just all crashed hard and loudly.Good performances from a very small cast, so there was a lot of weight on the actors and actresses. The movie had a fairly good cast all round, and I must admit that Lauren Cohan actually stepped up here and had a more convincing portrayal of emotions and character here than she does in "The Walking Dead".The movie really had potential to become something unique, and it was well on the way, but then the entire house of cards just collapsed faster than you could blink.

WTF - someone spend 10 million dollars on this? A boy doll maybe an evil spirit and the walking dead lady has to hang out with him? No plot. No character arc. No nothing. Dull. Slow. Dreadful. Not scary. Better than Jeepers Creepers 3. Still - I barely finished this. In fact, I turned it off.