Next month’s The Boogeyman could very well be the next big horror hit, especially if director Rob Savage is to be taken at his word. Speaking with SFX magazine, the filmmaker has now hyped up the horror of The Boogeyman to a terrifying extent, describing the movie as the most “viscerally scary” Stephen King adaptation of all time.
“The Shining is obviously the scariest Stephen King adaptation. But I don’t think there’s been a King adaptation that’s as viscerally scary as this movie.”
Considering that so many of Stephen King’s works have been adapted for the screen, with many of them resulting in some of the scariest examples of the horror genre to ever grace the screen, Savage’s claim is rather bold. Thankfully, Savage, who has already proven his affinity for frights with both Host and Dashcam, is more than happy to explain why he thinks The Boogeyman will stand so tall among the various adaptations…
“This movie attacks the source material in a way that’s different from any other King adaptation. We wanted this to feel true to his writing. Me and [co-screenwriter] Mark [Heyman] were always going back to the warmth of character that you feel in King’s novels. Even when the subject matter is dark, there’s that glimmer of hope. He’s not a cynical writer.”
The Boogeyman Had to Undergo Edits to Stop It Being Too Scary
Based on the 1973 short story of the same name by Stephen King, The Boogeyman follows high school student Sadie Harper and her little sister Sawyer, who are still reeling from the recent death of their mother. Devastated by his own pain, their father Will, a therapist by profession, gives them neither the support nor the affection that they try to claim from him. When a desperate patient shows up unexpectedly at their house asking for help, they bring in a terrifying entity that preys on the families and feeds on their greatest suffering.
The Boogeyman has already proven to be scary for some, with the movie having undergone some extra work in the editing room to reduce the frights. “The first time you see the creature, the audience screamed so loud, and then immediately started talking with their neighbours and chattering, that they completely missed the next lines,” Savage revealed recently. “So we had to recut it and build in 45 seconds of padding, just so they didn’t miss any vital information.”
Savage directs The Boogeyman from a screenplay by The Quiet Place duo Scott Beck & Bryan Woods and Black Swan’s Mark Heyman. The Boogeyman stars Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets, The Book of Boba Fett), Chris Messina (Birds of Prey, Argo), Vivian Lyra Blair (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Marin Ireland (The Umbrella Academy, Hell or High Water), Madison Hu (Bizaardvark), LisaGay Hamilton (Vice), and David Dastmalchian (Dune, The Dark Knight).
The Boogeyman is scheduled to be released theatrically in the United States on June 2, 2023, by 20th Century Studios.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
