Stephen King has made sure people completely understand a basic trope of horror following the first views and reactions to the upcoming The Boogeyman adaptation.
Based on a short story originally released by King in a pulp magazine, The Boogeyman is finally out of cinematic development hell. The first trailer saw some fairly basic horror vistas, including the perhaps annoying trope of absolute darkness, children’s rooms, and slightly bespooked parents.
Arguably, given the King of Horror’s writing style, it should probably involve some more visceral imagery. There had been critics of just how dark and gloomy the trailer looked, but King isn’t having a bar of it as he references in a tweet how it’s from a child’s perspective and light is the way out.
The light ball used by Vivien Lyra Blair of Obi-Wan Kenobi fame feels like a compelling MacGuffin for the film, if a bit dull. The adaptation seems to not be entirely faithful to the original story, with it seemingly not involving the psychiatrist or original framing out several already dead children from one father.
King seems to detach himself a lot more nowadays from the overall quality of adaptations from his works. Hell, he once gave the Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey version of The Dark Tower his approval. The esteemed author is well beyond caring now about the trivialities, which is fair.
The Boogeyman is set to be a horror blockbuster, kicking off the summer 2023 season with some spooks. Set to hit cinemas June 2, 2023, it’ll hope to throw a decent challenge down to current horror film of the year M3GAN.