The Boy
The Boy

The Boy

2016
Movie
98 min
English

A young American woman takes a job as a nanny in a remote English village, soon discovering that the family's eight-year-old son is a life-sized doll that comes with a list of strict rules.

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Insights

IMDb6.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes32%
Metacritic41/100
Google Users49%
Director: William Brent BellGenres: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Plot Summary

Greta Evans, a young American woman, takes a job as a nanny in a remote English village. Upon arrival, she discovers that the child she is supposed to care for is actually a life-sized porcelain doll named Brahms. Her employers, the Heelshires, leave Greta with a strict set of rules to follow regarding Brahms's care, hinting at a deeper, unsettling reason for their actions. As Greta begins to understand the doll's peculiar significance, she experiences increasingly disturbing events, leading her to question whether the house and the doll are truly haunted.

Critical Reception

The Boy received mixed to negative reviews from critics, with many finding the plot predictable and the scares unoriginal. However, it was a moderate box office success, appealing to audiences who enjoy suspenseful horror films with a psychological twist.

What Reviewers Say

  • The film attempts to deliver scares through atmosphere and suspense, but often relies on conventional horror tropes.
  • Lauren Cohan's performance is often cited as a highlight, grounding the increasingly bizarre narrative.
  • The twist ending, while intended to be shocking, was divisive among viewers and critics alike, with some finding it clever and others nonsensical.

Google audience: Audiences were divided on "The Boy." Many praised its suspenseful atmosphere and Cohan's lead performance, finding it a decent jump-scare horror flick. However, a significant portion of viewers felt the plot was too predictable and the ending was unsatisfying or illogical.

Fun Fact

Director William Brent Bell deliberately cast a doll that was already unsettling in appearance, rather than using CGI or special effects to create its creepiness.

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My Review

TMDB Reviews

5 reviews
skyezero

skyezero

I thought to myself, finally someone out there is making a movie on something which is an incredibly common phobia, this is going to be AMAZING! How wrong was I. After watching this movie I asked my partner what would she do in the females...
Gimly

Gimly

Takes the tired old "Living Doll" premise and does okay with it by adding in a couple little spritzes of originality and a cast up to task. These two factors, as well as a pretty compelling third act almost salvage a good movie from this wo...
Austin Singleton

Austin Singleton

One of the best horror movies I've watched in the last decade. Watch my full review here. http://www.hweird1reviews.com/allreviews//the-boy-review
Reno

Reno

> When a nanny meets a boy who is a weird toy. So this is the other 'The Boy'. The last year film was a thriller-drama, but this is a horror-mystery. It feels like watching a classic horror film, especially because of the English atmosph...
Frank Ochieng

Frank Ochieng

Let’s face facts…it is inevitable that bad horror films and the new beginning of a movie season go together as systematically as skeleton bones to an unmarked grave. In either case, both scenarios are routinely realized and does not look to...