Let’s face the facts folks, right now at the major theaters the pickins’ are damn slim for anything super tantalizing. So yesterday feeling the urge to go to the movies with a Fandango gift card I received for Christmas, I decided to take a chance on the latest in “freaky” doll flicks (which I always welcome with open arms) with “The Boy”. I gotta say the bar was set were pretty freaking low here and I was expecting the worse from a major Hollywood horror flick released in January. However to my delight The Boy was actually a pretty solid little thriller! For the most part…

That’s not to say it broke much in the way of new ground but still it was the perfect little matinee movie for a rainy day. This one isn’t going to give Chucky a run for his money and in all honesty it’s a completely different kind of freaky doll movie altogether. If you’re looking for a crazy killer doll flick then you’re in the wrong part of town with The Boy. Most of it’s charm really comes from the setting, which takes place in a huge old mansion in the English countryside. A woman named Greta travels there from the USA taking a nanny job watching over a life sized porcelain boy doll. Yeah at first her reaction is exactly what you might expect but the money is good enough so she agrees. Of course when “the boy’s” parents decide to go on vacation things quickly get really creepy.

Greta of course when left alone does what any of us might do in the situation, toss the freaky ass doll in it’s room, drink some damn wine and pass the hell out. However “the boy” clearly isn’t into being ignored and soon begins to seriously creep Greta the fuck out. Yep the doll pulls all kinds of weird pranks, soon she’s convinced the doll is indeed alive and is haunted by the spirit of the family’s real deceased child. So she suddenly decides to do her damn job and begin’s treating the doll like a real kid. Yon know like she agreed to in the first place! You’d think then the story might have a happy ending though right? Wrong! I forgot to mention that Greta is also on the run from her super douchebag, stalker ex boyfriend.

This makes matters worse and what happens soon leads to a few relatively unexpected twists and turns. Overall the movie was a cool little old school thriller with not a speck of bad CG anywhere. A solid ghost story and to only be spoiled for me by the fact (Now here’s a bit of a SPOILER) that I’d already seen an incredible indie movie from 2015 called “Housebound”. Yep “The Boy” borrows largely from that movie, which is a far superior movie. However if you’ve never seen Housebound “The Boy” will most certainly please anyone in search of a simple, creepy tale that’s perfect when there’s not much else on the tube.