‘The Boy’ – Review
By Lynn Sorel
Rating: 8 out of 10
Synopsis: An American nanny is shocked that her new English family’s boy is actually a life-sized doll. After she violates a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive.
Our Thoughts: ‘The Boy’ appears to be your run-of-the-mill haunted doll horror story, but it is far from it and so much more!
The film begins with nanny Gretchen going to start her job caring for a little boy named Brahms. She is from American and trying to get away from her abusive ex-boyfriend by getting as far away from him as she can. The first of many odd issues with the family is that the couple are much older than you’d expect for the parents of an eight year old boy. Then when we actually meet him, the boy is actually a doll. Gretchen believes that they are bat-shit crazy, as any normal person would. She agrees to do a ridiculous daily routine of caring for him for the next several months. As they are leaving, his mother says to her “I’m so sorry.” Clearly a bad sign of what is to come.
Right off, weird things start happening and Brahms seems to be alive. It takes her a little while, but she finally realizes what seemed obvious start; that the doll is very much alive. As a result, she finally starts taking the list of rules she was supposed to be following seriously. The family’s grocery man, and her only friend in the country, Malcolm, tells her what they knew of the real Brahms and how he died. She proves to him that Brahms is indeed alive in the doll. Realizing that she might be in danger, Malcolm reveals other details he heard surrounding Brahms’ death.
Gretchen had been keeping in touch with people back home, and in an unfortunate turn of events, her ex gets her new address. This small part of the story is predictable, with the ex showing up at her door and her resorting to asking Brahms for help in getting rid of him. At this point, the story takes a spectacular turn.
I had heard buzz around the film, but I wasn’t not 100% impressed with the trailer, believing it to be just another churned out in the recent trend of “creepy doll” movies. Boy (HA!), was I wrong! It turned out to be an original story, with a disturbing twisted story revealed.
Lauren Cohan is excellent as confused nanny Gretchen. Rupert Evans was also very good as partner-in-confusion Malcolm. This film did the best job of any in misleading the viewer that I have experienced in quite awhile. This film knocks ‘Annabelle’ out of the water. If you were disappointed with that film, as I was, and want to see a real creepy doll flick with an interesting story, go see ‘The Boy.’ You won’t be disappointed in this surprisingly unique addition to the genre.
