When is a jump scare in a horror movie too scary? "The Boogeyman" features a moment so unsettling that test screening audiences needed a break.
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00:00 When is a jump scare in a horror movie too scary?
00:04 The Boogeyman features a moment so unsettling that test-screening audiences needed a break.
00:09 One of the summer's biggest horror movies is The Boogeyman, adapted from the Stephen
00:13 King story of the same name.
00:15 It hails from director Rob Savage, who made waves a few years ago with his made-for-nothing
00:19 found-footage horror flick, Host, filmed and released during the pandemic.
00:24 Now Savage is back, this time adapting a story from a master of the genre, and critics seem
00:29 to agree that he did a damn good job of translating the material.
00:32 The reveal of the monster at the center of this story actually seems to have scared audiences
00:36 in early screenings so badly that they had to re-edit the movie to accommodate the reaction.
00:41 The filmmaker recently spoke with Empire in anticipation of the film's theatrical release.
00:47 Savage explained that the reveal of the titular Boogeyman worked like gangbusters in test-screenings.
00:51 The only problem?
00:52 The crowd reactions were so over-the-top that they obscured important plot details.
00:57 Here's what Savage had to say about it.
00:59 "The first time you see the creature, the audience screams so loud and then immediately
01:03 started talking with their neighbors and chattering that they completely missed the next lines.
01:07 So we had to re-cut it and build in 45 seconds of padding, just so they didn't miss any
01:11 vital information."
01:13 Savage added,
01:14 "I'm a huge jump-scare guy.
01:16 That's the most gratifying part.
01:17 When you see that play with an audience and you can feel them taking the bait, and then
01:21 you feel the jump land."
01:23 The first time we see the titular creature of The Boogeyman is in Young Sawyer's room.
01:27 She is woken up in the middle of the night by her closet door suddenly and violently
01:30 opening out of nowhere, before a creature runs towards her and hides under her bed.
01:35 When she looks down and checks, a horrifying dark monster runs at her, crawling around
01:39 like a spider.
01:41 We never really see the full body of the creature, which is part of why it's so frightening.
01:45 "It needs the dark to stay hidden."
01:49 To design the creature, director Rob Savage looked toward H.P.
01:52 Lovecraft, hoping to deliver something stark and striking, but which needed to mostly bleed
01:56 off into the shadows, while the audience filled in the blanks.
02:00 The giant, deer-like creature from the British horror film The Ritual also provided an inspiration
02:04 for the primordial, old, decayed look of the Boogeyman, and it shows.
02:08 This is not a grand, elegant monster.
02:11 Instead, it is a battered, ugly creature that looks beaten up by the centuries.
02:15 The fact that we don't really know what it is, and we don't really see enough to do more
02:18 than speculate, is the brilliance of The Boogeyman.
02:22 Like the best horror monsters, like the Shark and Jaws or the Xenomorph and Alien, the fear
02:26 of the unknown and unseen is as great as the fear of the creature itself.
02:30 When making a horror movie, getting effective jump scares like that is an absolute must.
02:35 It's part of the communal experience, and that helps put a lot of butts in seats.
02:39 But audiences enjoying a communal jump scare nearly wasn't the case for this movie.
02:43 The Boogeyman was originally produced with a streaming release on Hulu in mind.
02:47 However, outstanding test screenings convinced Disney to shift its strategy and give this
02:51 one a wide release in theaters, right in the heart of a summer movie season.
02:56 And it was actually Stephen King himself who helped ensure that the film wouldn't be relegated
03:00 to streaming.
03:01 Given that it seems Savage produced a crowd-pleaser here, that shift seems like a wise move.
03:06 Horror has been the hottest thing at the box office over the last couple of years, with
03:10 movies like Smile, Megan, and The Black Phone serving as recent success stories.
03:15 Disney undoubtedly stands to make a bigger splash — and more money — by letting this
03:18 monster scare audiences in crowded theaters.
03:22 Maximum impact, maximum profit.
03:25 The Boogeyman is out in theaters now.
03:26 [music]