The Boy (2016)

Name: The Boy (2016)
Released: 2016-1-22
Cast: Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, Jim Norton, Diana Hardcastle, Ben Robson

The Boy (2016)

PG-13
1h 37m
2016

30%

age 14+

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The Boy is a frightening thrill ride directed by William Brent Bell (The Devil Inside) and starring Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead). Greta (Cohan) is a young American woman who takes a job as a nanny in a remote English village. She soon discovers that the family’s 8-year-old is a life-sized doll that they care for just like a real boy, as a way to cope with the death of their son 20 years prior. After violating a list of strict rules, a series of disturbing and inexplicable events bring Greta’s worst nightmare to life, leading her to believe that the doll is actually alive.

Director:

William Brent Bell

Producer:

Writer:

Stacey Menear

Cast:

Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, Jim Norton, Diana Hardcastle, Ben Robson, James Russell

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

TOMATOMETER®

30%

Critics Consensus: The Boy could have gone in any number of scary or interesting directions, but instead settles for usual jump scares scattered throughout a pedestrian plot.

Reviews

SF Crowsnest

Frank Ochieng

The Boy certainly has its moments of shock value but the sluggish story feels lukewarm for the mos...

The Boy was much more successful than I imagined it could be. There were so many elements that wor...

One of the more successful entries in the evil doll sub-genre, poking fun at itself at all the rig...

Lauren Cohan is surprisingly decent acting alongside a porcelain doll), but the indisputable disas...

The Boy is strange, odd and even awkward but we hope the sequel is truly scary... the real deal.

November 9, 2017

FULL REVIEW

Common Sense Media

age 14+

Common Sense Says

Unoriginal but well-made "creepy doll" horror movie.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Boy is a "creepy doll" horror film. It's not entirely original, but it is well-made, and it could catch on with teen horror-hounds. While not overly gory, characters do die (both by stabbing and via suicide), words are written in blood on a wall, and there are scary sounds and jump-scares, characters fighting and being slammed around, and dead rats. A man and a woman kiss, moving toward sex, but they're interrupted; there's also some flirting and shots of a woman taking a shower (no graphic nudity) and wearing a towel and underwear. Language is infrequent but includes uses of "s--t," "bitch," and "hell." A character drinks wine in one sequence.