Horror in a word [The Boogeyman]

I’ll admit, I’m nervous whenever a book or short story is adapted to film. Double my trepidation when the source material is written by Stephen King. His work has spawned some of the best (The Shawshank Redemption) and worst (The Lawnmower Man) films in history.

When director Gerard Lough (Stolen Wings) told me he had adapted King’s short story “The Boogeyman” for a short film, warning bells started sounding in my head. I respect Lough’s work, but there are few filmmakers I would trust to adapt this story convincingly.

I needn’t have worried. Lough embraces the intamcy in this tale of a man confessing the horror of his children’s deaths to a psychiatrist.

As the story begins, Andrew Billings (Simon Fogarty) is explaining to Dr. Harper (Michael Parle) that his children’s deaths, though ruled accidents, were actually murder. At first, the film is dialogue driven, a conversation between the two men, but it soon flashes back to show how he lost them to the mysterious Boogeyman.

For a short story, “The Boogeyman” packs in a lot of horror. Lough’s film, too, leads the audience through some horrible revelations, as it becomes more and more believable that Andrew may not be crazy.

Something lurks behind the closet door in the short film adapation of Stephen King's The Boogeyman. ©2010 Arcadia Video

I’ll say this. Lough’s screenplay is very faithful to what I remember of the original. Most of the noticeable changes are for the sake of setting. In moving it from America to Ireland, nothing is lost, but the language does change a bit. The dialogue has a few Irish idioms that added authenticity to the piece.

Produced on a shoestring budget — I read it was made for 2000 euros — the sound quality is not quite perfect. But the directing is spot on. There’s a beautiful change in color when Andrew remembers his own childhood and the root of his fear of water. And the transitions after the first death of a child subtly reflect the passage of time.

If I had one complaint about the film, it would be that it didn’t show as much as I would have liked. Too often, the action taking place in the past was merely talked about in the psychiatrist’s office. In particular, the pregnancy of Rita (Joanne Cullen) after the death of her children was reduced to a mere phrase about knitting and eating pickles. I think it would have been nice to see her more.

Overall, I heartily recommend The Boogeyman if you get a chance to see it. This short film is an outstanding example of what independent filmmakers can do — even with limited means.

Watch the trailer