The Boy (2016) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A nanny believes she will be taking care of a young child only to discover the parents treat a weird doll as if it is alive.

Review: Wowwee, this was laughably bad. Between all the eye-rolling, I was almost crying at one point from all the laughing. This is essentially a haunted doll movie where you find out the doll isn't actually haunted. Scary. While the reveal as to what's really happening in the story was presented well enough, that doesn't make things any less ludicrous. It's not even the atmosphere or scares that lack, it's just how stupid the flow of events are. I kept saying if the main chick's ex-boyfriend shows up I'm taking a full point off the rating, and guess who showed up? Goodness gracious.

So what the hell is happening in this shit? Greta is hired as some nanny for old geezers living in a giant mansion in the middle of nowhere. Greta believes she is supposed to take care of a kid named Brahms, but, instead, the son died and the parents have been treating some doll like the boy for decades. There are a ton of rules they want Greta to follow that easily hints at the twist to come. Probably the most egregious factor is that all the best scares--ones that would imply the doll is haunted--are all dreams. This seems to be a deliberate and cheap attempt to convince the audience that the doll is supernatural that way you will be more likely to be impressed by the last reveal. For me, this had the inverse reaction and was annoying; your best scenes shouldn't be dream sequences unless this is "Inception."

There is a point around the halfway mark where it felt like the filmmakers were running out of ideas. For one, when Greta is supposed to go on that date and her loverboy doesn't come into the house to find her, yet, every other instance with this character involves him entering on his own and often times for weak jumps scares. Painfully bad writing. Likewise, the film meanders about trying to make things seem creepy when it starts to get weird and sane people would just bail. Then, of course, once Greta's ex-boyfriend shows up I had become dizzy from all the eye-rolling. This guy followed her to a different country, found a house in the middle of nowhere, broke in, and started playing pool until she noticed him. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight! This fucking movie. And all this so the movie can have one kill in it! Eventually we realize the ridiculous truth that Brahms never died as a boy, and the parents do this shit with the doll because...wait, why? And did they build the mansion to have hollow walls before or after faking Brahms' death? And why did they fake his death...to cover up him killing that little girl? Did he even kill her? And the police were cool with never finding Brahms' body? What the fuck is this movie even about again?!

Needless to say, "The Boy" is a horrendous mess. I don't know where these high ratings are coming from, because this plain sucked. While the general premise held potential, the twist is hardly a payoff when it creates endless questions and makes little sense. The main characters make overly stupid decisions that go above and beyond the norm for horror, and that's not counting the many contrivances. The fake out dreams are merely the icing on the idiocy cake that were created only for the trailer's sake. Obviously others are enjoying this trash, but I do not see many merits to discuss. "The Boy" is competently made, but is a huge letdown and boggled down by numerous brain-dead decisions.

Notable Moment: When Greta stabs Brahms and is thrown across the room in slow motion. Dear lord, I was nearly brought to tears from all the laughing at this moronic scene. Rewinding it like 5 times didn't help either.

Final Rating: 4/10