Day 5 on our trek through creepy cinema, and today’s offering is the 2016 chiller The Boy. The movie follows Greta Evans (The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan), who has arrived in England from the States to be a nanny for the son of the Heelshires (Jim Norton and Diana Hardcastle). Greta is introduced to their son, Brahms, who much to her surprise is a doll. Greta learns from the delivery man Malcolm (Rupert Evans) the tale behind the doll. The Heelshires leave on a trip, leaving Greta alone in the big creepy house with Brahms. Naturally, odd things begin to happen, and Greta comes to realize there is more to the doll than what seems to be.
The movie begins with an interesting enough premise, with Greta at first expressing amused disbelief, and then growing acceptance of her charge. Director William Brent Bell (The Devil Inside) does a nice job of establishing an unsettling atmosphere, and the script by Stacey Menear holds your interest throughout, despite treading on some familiar ground. Cohan is pretty good here, showing a nice range in going from amusement to fear to a near descent into madness as she treats the boy Brahms more as a child than a doll. The film works nicely as a supernatural type thriller for the first two thirds, and then moves onto something more familiar in its final act. Even with the somewhat predictable revelation, there’s enough action and suspense in the final minutes to keep you watching. The Boy is currently available on DVD/Blu-ray, and is worth at least a rent. 7/10 stars
