The absolute best scares come when we genuinely least expect them. When the audience is breathing a sigh of relief, when it feels like the biggest challenges are in the past, and when there’s simply no way it can get worse. They catch you mid-sentence in a relaxed dialogue between two laughing characters, they emerge quietly in the background of an innocuous scene as someone tidies up their house, and they boom in with loud sound effects just when you think you have a moment of peace.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that two of the scary cinematic stories you can take in this summer – The Boogeyman and Dark Nature – prey on characters who think they’ve already been through the worst. Characters traumatized by their past, and left wounded and weak. Characters just getting their feet under them and starting to turn their lives around. After all, what better themes to present to audiences who have just declared a pandemic over, who have seemingly rid themselves of a tyrant-in-chief, and who finally seem to be enjoying well-written films again? Cue cuts to social safety nets, yet another nascent presidential campaign season, and of course a writer’s strike….Boo! Gotcha.
In The Boogeyman, a young teen is reeling in the aftermath of her mother’s sudden death, caught in the middle between a psychiatrist dad who ironically has no interest in discussing the loss, and a younger sister who deals with her grief by treating it like a monster in her closet. But when dad agrees to see a patient who also speaks of monsters coming after children, the terror hits close to home and seems to latch onto the grieving family without letting go.
In Dark Nature, a woman who has recently escaped a violent and abusive relationship agrees to join her friend and group therapy buddy on a retreat to help them face their fears while camping in the wilderness. But something is watching the women, and they soon find themselves digging deep to find the strength to run for their lives and even fight back, all over again.
In some ways these films could not be more different. The Boogeyman is a shiny product of 20th Century Studios that pivoted from a small streaming-only release to a major in-theater summer blockbuster after test screenings proved promising. Based on a short story by the one-and-only Stephen King, this latest iteration of The Boogeyman is directed by Rob Savage, who headed up one of my favorite mid-pandemic productions in Host. Meanwhile, Dark Nature is a Canadian horror and directorial debut for writer/director Berkley Brady.
Where The Boogeyman finds its scares in the tight corners of old houses, Dark Nature relies on the wild unknown of the great outdoors, à la The Descent. While The Boogeyman’s big production chops helps mask its at times derivative and formulaic faults, Dark Nature’s smaller budget unfortunately doesn’t offer the same safety net to catch what falls through the film’s plot holes and gaps in pacing.
But despite their shortfalls, both films scratch that summer itch for a horror movie that walks the line between monster horror and psychological thriller. They boast effectively terrifying humanoid-slash-demon-like creatures that are either the vestiges of the characters’ fractured psyches, or actual physical manifestations of their personal demons – you simply have to see the films to find out. The acting is convincing enough in both, with Sophie Thatcher of television’s Yellowjackets winning my award for outstanding performance of the two films, trailed closely and perhaps unsurprisingly by her sister played by Vivien Lyra Blair, who also found fame on the small screen as young Princess Leia in the series Obi-Wan Kenobi. Meanwhile, Hannah Emily Anderson holds strong in Dark Nature as a believably fragile survivor on the brink of self-empowered strength.
While demons and monsters, real or imagined, will never quite scare me like paranormal horror, both The Boogeyman and Dark Nature check that midsummer box for creature feature fun. With one in theaters at the other streaming at home, give them both a shot and get ready for some fantastic frights. After all, with the world’s biggest worries in our rearview, what could go wrong?
SpecialK Verdict: Give both The Boogeyman and Dark Nature a chance this summer, take in some scares that leer at you from the darker corners of your mind, and remind yourself that no matter how bad things are, they could always be worse.
The Boogeyman opened in theaters Friday, June 2, and Dark Nature is available on demand.
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