The Boy

"Every child needs to feel loved."

2016 1h 38m EN

😐

6.0

MID

🥫

31%

ROTTEN

😬

METACRITIC

⭐

IMDB

★6.0TMDB · 4,040🥫31%Rotten Tomatoes●42Metacritic★6IMDB · 107,626

HorrorMysteryThriller

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

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.

“Every child needs to feel loved.”

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Cast

Lauren Cohan
Greta Evans
Rupert Evans
Malcolm
James Russell
Brahms Heelshire
Jim Norton
Mr. Heelshire
Diana Hardcastle
Mrs. Heelshire
Ben Robson
Cole
Jett Klyne
Child Brahms
Lily Pater
Emily Cribbs

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: William Brent Bell
Writers: Stacey Menear
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 7.4× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 10 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "The Boy Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by William Brent Bell, shot by Daniel Pearl. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Bear McCreary. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Brian Berdan shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Lauren Cohan and Rupert Evans and James Russell carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Every child needs to feel loved.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

William Brent Bell directs. Daniel Pearl behind the camera. Bear McCreary scores. Brian Berdan cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Made its money back 7.4× over at the box office.
2Released 10 years ago.
3Part of the "The Boy Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4Directed by William Brent Bell, shot by Daniel Pearl. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Bear McCreary. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Brian Berdan shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Lauren Cohan and Rupert Evans and James Russell carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Every child needs to feel loved.".
9IMDB entry: tt3882082 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 15 themes, including "mask", "suicide", "fire", "england".

The technical file

Cinematography: Daniel Pearl
Original score: Bear McCreary
Editing: Brian Berdan
Production design: John Willett
Costume design: Jori Woodman
Makeup / hair: Linda Jones
VFX supervisor: Anders Freij
Sound: Laura Wiest
Stunt coordinator: Dan Shea
Runtime: 98 min · 1h 38m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $10,000,000
Box office: $73,929,392
Return: 739% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: The Boy (2016)
Rotten Tomatoes: 31% 🥫 Rotten
Metacritic: 42/100
IMDB rating: 6/10 · 107,626 votes
MPAA: PG-13

Awards

6 nominations total

Part of

The Boy Collection

A supernatural horror film series that centers around a porcelain doll and Brahms Heelshire.

Also by

William Brent Bell

Stills · wallpapers

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Frank Ochieng2016-02-08
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 change at any time in the immediate future. Director William Brent Bell’s (‘The Devil Inside’) latest banal boofest ‘The Boy’ is basically business as usual in terms of registering as a flaccid fright fable pitted in the dumping ground of released duds in the relatively new year. In essence, ‘The Boy’ is one stillborn terrorizing tyke born out of artificial and tired creepy conventions. Sure, The Boy has its share of atmospheric chills and, as a production, it exudes a tension-filled anxiousness courtesy of the polished Gothic-induced vibes in gives off in its sinister-looking set designs. Nevertheless, The Boy fails to hold our attention where it truly counts in structured, solid storytelling and viable psychological thrills. Instead, Bell’s pat knee-shaking narrative spends its time focusing on the familiar and flawed cliches involving meager melodramatic plot developments, recycled unnatural occurrences, the movie’s harried heroine and her beleaguered backstory and annoying jolts and tiresome false jump starts in manufactured suspense. Of course, ‘The Boy’s panic playground for its horrific happenings takes place in a spacious and darkened manor populated by eccentric occupants and their devoted, demonic doll (hence, ‘the boy’ in question). American Greta Evans (Lauren Cohan, ‘The Walking Dead’) travels across the pond to start over in the quaint English countryside as she leaves behind the fragments of a bad relationship back the States. Greta looks to pursue a job opportunity as a nanny for the Heelshire couple (Jim Norton and Diana Hardcastle) at their expansive estate. The Heelshires need Greta for tending to their son Brahms’s personal affairs. The unusual discovery from the newly hired nanny, however, is that Greta’s task is to watch Brahms, a porcelain doll and NOT a human little boy. The Heelshires, out of touch with reality, treats the inanimate tot as a real son. Nevertheless, a job is a job so Greta minds the toy tyke when his ‘parents’ decide to go away for the holiday. Thankfully, Greta learns about the histrionics pertaining to the Heelshires and Brahms through their deliveryman Malcolm (Rupert Evans). The Heelshires’ disillusionment originated nearly two decades ago when the original and real-life Brahms died in a tragic fire. This, of course, reveals the questionable quirks about the boy’s maturing parents’ behavior and denial mode in substituting the doll conveniently for their belated and beloved son Brahms. Greta is determined to do right by the Heelshires and treat Brahms with the compassion they imaged her duties would entail. Importantly, Greta must make a good impression on the unassuming boy doll as the Heelshires warned that Brahms has had his troubles with past nannies. At first Greta is pensive to react to Brahms and leaves him sitting idle in the corner. The Heelshires had given specific instructions on how to handle their precious “boy” as they have naturally spoiled him with amounts of attention. Greta eventually finds the nerve to cater to Brahms’s every caretaking whims and soon expresses a fondness for him in the process. So far, so good, right? The Boy certainly has its moments of shock value but the sluggish story feels lukewarm for the most part. Bell and screenwriter Stacey Manear cobble together a mysterious and moody horror thriller that is somewhat old-fashioned as it relies on tension-building tactics involving shadowy hallways, dim-light rooms and innuendo scares that suggest more meat to the bone when spotlighting everything from Brahms’s aura of the present to the deceased Brahms’s existence of the past. Both Bell and Manear arm The Boy’s leading lady Cohan/Greta with personal issues meant to carry over to the English landscape but the malaise she possesses comes off as matter-of-factly. And who really did not telegraph Greta’s ex-main squeeze Cole showing up in England to claim his woman’s heart only to meet some static concerning the clingy Brahms? It is such a shame that The Boy could not capitalize any further on its strange and hypnotic inclinations. After all, this off-kilter narrative had the makings for a psychological masking of paranoia and possessiveness but never quite taps into the underscored hedonistic hold that exists between Greta and toyish tot Brahms or Brahms and the salacious spells of the manor where his dubious presence exists. Sadly, the slow burn effectiveness of The Boy stutters especially when revisiting the titillating genre of disturbing dolls and the mayhem they spin towards their hapless human counterparts (yeah, at least Chucky and Magic’s dummy Fats had some genuine gory gumption to bring to the terrifying table). What is maddening about The Boy is the wasted potential of what perhaps could have been a whacked-out gem that exploited the surreal circumstances of mental and emotional loss and elusive reality. Instead, the intended suspense is as solitary and stiff as the bratty Brahms’s compact body. The Boy (2016) 1 hr. 37 mins. Starring: Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, Diana Hardcastle, James Russell, Jim Norton Directed by: William Brent Bell MPAA Rating: PG-13 Genre: Horror/Thriller Critic’s rating: stars (out of 4 stars) (c) Frank Ochieng 2016
Reno2016-05-14
★ 6/10
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 atmosphere and the house where it was shot. A young American woman named Greta, takes up a nanny job in England to escape from the troubled relationship with her boyfriend. She discovers the boy she has to look out is a doll and later she observes a series of strange events that leads her to find out the truth. The dark secret comes out and that's the film. A limited cast film. The suspense was the key to the story narrating successfully. So I expected a big twist at the end, but it was a decent one and the overall film was just above average. The atmosphere was creepy, and then it weakened as the development was decelerated going to the second and the final act. Until the twist, it was good and after that a bit disappointing. Not because of the bad conclusion, but comparing it with the rest, especially after the anticipation it created in us, that end part looked so small and simple. Good film to watch for once, but like the most of the horror films, it's fallen short to get my thumbs up. 6/10
Austin Singleton2016-08-11
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