The Boogeyman has revived Stephen King adaptations after an awful four-year streak. The new film is loosely based on King's 1978 short story and follows a teenage girl haunted by a monster after losing her mother in a car accident. Like King's other stories, The Boogeyman delves into traumatic experiences and how they affect the characters who've endured them. King has never been a fan of mindless horror, and each of his stories holds a deeper message, though, on the surface, they might seem like typical scary stories. Even IT, following a killer clown, holds a crucial message about overcoming fear.
Unfortunately, not all of King's adaptations have correctly portrayed his messages. King's greatest criticism of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is that it left out the message in his book. King compared the film to a nice car with no engine and dispised how Kubrick ignored his message about addiction and turned Jack Torrence into a relentless killer when there was actually humanness to him in the original book. A few other King adaptations lost his message in their transition to film, but luckily The Boogeyman stayed true to King's story making it an instant success after four years of poorly done adaptations.
The Boogeyman Is The Best Stephen King Movie Since Doctor Sleep
The Boogeyman follows recent King adaptations like Firestarter, Mr. Harrigan's Phone, and Children of The Corn, all of which received mostly negative reviews. However, in 2019, Doctor Sleep, the adaptation of King's The Shining sequel, did very well. Doctor Sleep follows Danny Torrence as an adult, dealing with alcoholism as a coping mechanism for his childhood experiences at the Overlook Hotel. Instead of following up on Kubrick's film, Doctor Sleep acted as a true sequel to King's novel, conveying all the messages that The Shining ignored.
The Boogeyman followed suit, aiming not only to terrify viewers with its monster but showcase how the monster is connected to the family's trauma after losing the mother figure. Will itted that he doesn't know how his wife used to take on the role of being a mother because of how much work it was. He feels lost without her, as do his children, which is why the boogeyman is able to manifest in their household, feeding on their unstable circumstances.
Stephen King's Work Is Finally Understood Again In The Boogeyman
It takes an analytical eye to understand King's work. His stories are not simply about killer clowns or haunted hotels. They all possess underlying messages about fear, trauma, or the underdog coming out on top. Unfortunately, not every filmmaker has been able to convey these messages in their adaptations. Focusing solely on the horror aspect to scare viewers instead of teaching them a valuable lesson is why many of King's adaptations didn't work.
However, director Rob Savage understood King's work like Mike Flannigan has always understood his stories. Flanagan and King also collaborated on Flanagan's adaptation of Gerald's Game, and every time the directing gets it right. King has been open about his experience with drug addiction and alcoholism throughout the 80s and has also told a terrifying story about childhood trauma. King says that while he had no conscious memory of the incident when he was a child, he witnessed a friend get struck and killed by a train.
These dark events from King's life likely drew him to the horror genre, and this is why his films hold more significant messages of addiction and trauma instead of simply creating horror to scare an audience. The Boogeyman gets this. Sadie is dealing with her mother's death and some mistreatment from friends at school. She feels alone, as does her young sister, who is terrified of the dark. The film is less about the monster itself but the inner demons the family is dealing with and how that invites the boogeyman in.
Why Stephen King's Last Three Movies Before The Boogeyman Failed
2023's Children of the Corn, 2022's Firestarter, both remakes, and 2022's Mr. Harrigan's Phone didn't perform well, and filmmakers didn't adapt the stories as well as Flanagan and Savage did. With Children of the Corn, King aimed to discuss the dangers of religion, and with Firestarter, he made readers aware of their gifts and those who would try to benefit from them.
Mr. Harrigan's Phone explores how a young boy constantly took from an older man who simply wanted to rest in peace. The films didn't add much to the original stories' messages that King worked so hard to craft. As Doctor Sleep and The Boogeyman display, King's work is best adapted when filmmakers understand the underlying messages.
