By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Like most fans of the horror genre, I absolutely love movies about haunted or killer dolls. The CHILD’S PLAY series made Brad Dourif an icon. DOLLS (1987) is another great flick. One of the most memorable episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE is LIVING DOLL. Who can forget the line, “I’m Talking Tina, and I’m going to kill you.” Even the recent low budget movie ROBERT (2015) was enjoyable.
I meant to see THE BOY (2016) when it originally came to theaters, but life interfered. Just yesterday, it became available for purchase on AMAZON PRIME so I bought it.
The film opens with Greta (Lauren Cohan) moving to the United Kingdom and accepting a job to be a nanny. The elderly couple, Mr. (Jim Norton) and Mrs. Heelshire (Diana Hardcastle) welcome Greta into the house. They advise her that many nannies had been rejected by their young son. Greta is intent on doing the best job and looks forward to meeting the tyke.
When Greta first sees a their son, Brahms, she starts to laugh. She thinks it’s a joke because sitting in front of her is just a porcelain doll. It takes her a moment to realize that the Heelshires are very serious. Once the Heelshires get through to her that they want Brahms to be cared for, they leave her alone and go on vacation.
Greta soon learns that the real Brahms did exist, but died in a fire years ago. Prior to his death, he had a small friend that after playing with him ended up dead. The little girl’s skull was bashed in.
At first, Greta thinks the entire thing is insane and doesn’t follow the set of rules that the Heelshires left behind for her. This seemingly angers and upsets the doll as strange things start to happen. Items move by themselves and even Brahms moves by itself.
Slowly, Greta begins to think the doll is alive. Instead of being completely panicked, she decides to care for it and follow the rules. She takes on a motherly role as she previously suffered a miscarriage and is sensitive to the young boy.
Things settle down until Greta’s abusive ex-boyfriend arrives and smashes Brahms. When his face shatters to the ground, the horror begins and all is revealed.
Without question, this film could have been better. Though, I prefer the look of the Brahms over the doll used in ROBERT, THE BOY was no where near as good. ROBERT THE DOLL had a much more modest budget but utilized it well. THE BOY focused too much on being artistically shot and the GOTCHA! moment near the end, rather than being consistently scary and plot driven.
The overall plot was empty, but that’s not to say there weren’t enough aspect of the movie to save it. As I stated, the doll is excellent. I like that it was porclain doll that appears completely lifeless. Many recent movies about killer dolls use ones that no one would ever buy. ANNABELLE and ROBERT are great examples. The filmmakers opt to use dolls that are superficially scary which oddly works against the horror factor. It makes the existence of the doll unrealistic. A simple rag doll like the real Annabelle and Robert are far more terrifying because they look like those that could be owned by a child. When a doll looks like a puppet out of DEAD SILENCE (2007), the fear is non-existent.
The trick is that they need to appear nice and sweet on the surface. Talking Tina from THE TWILIGHT ZONE always looked like the perfect little girl, but she was the doll from hell and killed poor Kojak.
It’s a very strange reaction but there is something far more terrifying about items or people that are generally good showing an evil side. One can see this by watching the original THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974). As a woman is being tortured the cameras pan to a pleasant, quiet day with a windmill spinning. It has been embedded in us that the night is scary. It when we can’t see what is in front of us when we are to be wary of our surroundings. In TCM they turned that on its head and it worked beautifully.
Clowns are another great example. When the make-up used on clowns depict an insane, evil entity, it’s not scary. Think about KILLER CLOWNS FROM OUTERSPACE (1988). It’s a fun film but far from scary. That said, when you see a happy, joyous clown being diabolical, the fear sets in far more. IT (1990) and Tim Curry’s perfect performance supports this theory as well.
In THE BOY, Brahms is a regular porcelain doll. Though he isn’t wearing a smile, he is easily the equivalent of something one can buy in a catalog. I know this because my mother is somewhat of a doll aficionado.
Brahms combined with the house definitely created atmosphere, it just was never explored to its full potential.
The acting was fine, but the focus of the writing was all over the place. I wonder if it was edited for time thus leaving out some pivotal information.
The transition of Greta was also done in a very easy way. Using the miscarriage, the writers were able to create a quick believable bond, but it felt cheap. I would have preferred if Greta had become obsessed with the doll and fully bought into the rules given because of something she deemed a supernatural attachment. I think it would’ve worked better with the ending.
SPOILERS:
The reason I think this is because at the end, Brahms isn’t haunted. The real Brahms never died and lives behind the wall. He comes out and moves the doll himself.
It would’ve been cooler if Greta was so swayed by what she thought was a paranormal event that she grew extremely close to the doll. A better ending would have seen the real Brahm come out of the wall because he loved Greta and wanted her to be with the real him. He could have explained that the death of the girl was an accident and his parents out of misguided love and fear made him stay in the wall and had ordered him to act a certain way for his whole life, thus making him a flawed and sympathetic character.
Greta would’ve freaked out when Brahm took the porcelain version of himself from her explaining that they could finally find peace together. Greta being absolutely insane, would have killed him and kept the doll. After burying Brahm’s body in the wall, his soul could have found its way into the doll.
That’s what I was hoping would happen. It didn’t. Though the real Brahm looked cool and wore a mask identical to the doll’s face, it just didn’t hit the right chord. It led up to a predictable fight where Greta outsmarted Brahm.
Overall, the film wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. Maybe, I’d watch it once every couple of years. My biggest disappointment is that they had a more interesting avenue to explore. Had the villain turned out to be the protagonist because she was driven insane by the captive, horror fans would’ve been blown away.
As it is, this is definitely something you want to wait to see via REDBOX or NETFLIX. It’s not worth an outright purchase.
Scared Stiff Rating: 4.5/10
