Review: The Boy (2016)

“Be good to him and he will be good to you.”
– Mr Heelshire

SYNOPSIS: An American nanny is shocked that her new English family’s boy is actually a life-sized doll. After she violates a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive. – via IMDB

Okay, so I wasn’t expecting greatness from The Boy. I was expecting a run of the mill horror, as it is so rare to find a great one nowadays. I know the reviews for this came back harshly, and now I can totally understand why. Initially I was thinking it couldn’t really be that bad. Wrong. It can be. It starts off as nothing too serious, and it is okay, nothing we haven’t seen before, but enough to keep you entertained. However, before you can blink your eyes and catch up properly, the movie has totally derailed into something so ridiculous and absurd, you can’t even suspend logic for the sake of the horror movie. For reals.

I am all on board with trying to do something a little different and all that, but come off it! This was one movie in the first half and another in the second, and it was so stupid, no less. Plot twist my foot! Ugh. I get what they were trying to go for, I do, and I get why they would have wanted to, but this was just not right, it wasn’t handled well (in my opinion, that is). It could have played off in so many different ways. The writers never really embraced their concept and didn’t go all out for it – the premise is bizarre as is, they should have just gone for it, used it! Instead, it just falls flat, something that technically could have been so much more. What a waste of time.

Cohan does what she can with the role, but the script is so uninspired as it is, there is not much you can really do with it. Then there is Malcolm, and he and Greta seem to work well, but nothing special. The movie is predictable and lives on a ton of horror clichés, until it tries to break the mould, and that is where things just backfired. Badly. Initially you do wonder about this doll, about Greta, about her psychological state, about the supernatural. Then the movie breaks from this, and it gets ridiculous. Ugh, I was just irritated with this silly movie by the end, and it was a supremely unsatisfying watch over and above it.

The Boy really had no idea what it actually wanted, and if the execution is what it was going for, it failed. I regret having wasted my time. Again, I didn’t expect the next Babadook or anything, but I didn’t think it could be that dreadful. It is. Skip it, if you are one of the lucky few that has not lost time on this crappy movie.

Review: Blood Sisters – Graham Masterton

Katie Maguire #5

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

SYNOPSIS: In a nursing home on the outskirts of Cork, an elderly nun lies dead. She has been suffocated. It looks like a mercy-killing – until another sister from the same convent is found viciously murdered, floating in the Glashaboy river.

The nuns were good women, doing God’s work. Why would anyone want to kill them? But then a child’s skull is unearthed in the garden of the nuns’ convent, and DS Katie Maguire discovers a fifty year old secret that just might lead her to the killer… if the killer doesn’t find her first. – via Goodreads

Alright, so I wished for this book on NetGalley and I was so happy when I was granted the book. I read some of Masterton’s work when I was younger, and I remember enjoying what I did read, so to find new stuff was pretty cool. However, things didn’t go quite as I had planned or hoped. I was not a fan of the writing style at all. It annoyed me endlessly. Then there was the issue of character naming. Just call the characters on their surnames or their names, not their entire title, name, surname and pedigree. Seriously. It makes for disjointed reading, and I was unimpressed. Not to mention how the story dawdles, like it has no real idea what it wants to do with itself. I read half the book and virtually nothing had changed – the same things were being continually repeated. To give you an idea – it took me the better part of three weeks to read this because I would read a few pages and then just find something, anything, else to do. I don’t know when last I read a book that annoyed me so much or made me procrastinate on the level that I did with this. It was not a tight story, though it had all the potential in the world, it was peppered with unlikable characters, not to mention a ridiculously whiny lead that did nothing to endear herself anywhere – I couldn’t care less what happened to her. The story went on and on and on and nothing was really happening. There was some silly reveal that was supposed to shock that fell flat, and there were plenty admissions and scenes littered throughout the book that I did not enjoy at all. I did not find this thrilling, creepy or anything to get under my skin, to make me think further. I was hoping for that, as there are few things I love as much as a crime thriller, especially when there is a dash of horror mixed into it. This novel just didn’t deliver the goods on that front. Overall, I feel that I wasted a lot of time with this and that sucks, because I was sure this was going to be a decent read. I am sure that there are people that will thoroughly enjoy this, but I was certainly not one of them. Rest assured, I will not be checking out any of the other books in this series.