After the success of Host, we shouldn’t be too surprised to see a Rob Savage vehicle making headlines, especially a horror-oriented one like The Boogeyman. It might have been three years in the making, but Savage is back and better than before, kicking his career into overdrive at just 31 years old. And this is just the beginning; imagine where Savage might be in another 10 years or so. We Got This Covered had the absolute pleasure to sit down with Savage to discuss his return to the horror genre following a three-year hiatus.
Based on the famous short story by Stephen King, The Boogeyman stars Chris Messina as a widowed father whose two daughters Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) begin seeing a nightmarish figure in the dark crevices of their home, which they come to discover as The Boogeyman, a malicious entity that attaches itself to a family and seeks to suck the life-force out of children when their parents “aren’t paying attention.” Although the movie was originally planned to be released on Hulu, it performed so well at the test screening that Savage and King decided to snag a theatrical release deal for it.
And Savage couldn’t be prouder of the work he’s produced, despite The Boogeyman barely scraping the surface of what the genre has to offer. We asked communicated to Savage the concept of clichés in horror, such as the scary noise coming from the basement, the demon in the doorway or a snapping twig when the protagonist is hiding. All of these events have become expected of the horror genre, but Savage assures that he understands this and has broken the mold with The Boogeyman to stray away from ‘typical’ scares.
Not to speak ill of a genre that everybody loves, but there are certain setups to scares where you can almost always predict what’s going to happen; whether it’s a creaking floorboard, a door that’s ajar, or the old classic of somebody looking in the mirror with definitely nothing behind them. As a fan and a filmmaker that’s been playing in that sandbox for a while, it’s clear watching your movies that you know that, too, and there’s always a point of doing the opposite of what the “easy” scare would be.
Rob Savage: “I think that’s it. And I see a lot of a lot of bad lazy horror being made by people who don’t love the genre. And you can just tell, you can tell that in the very fabric of the movie, they’re not a lover of the genre. They’re not a connoisseur of the genre. And I think that’s hopefully why I get away with being such a jump scare, schlock-meister, is because I think audiences can tell that I love this stuff. And I love the genre. And I know it inside out.”
Rob Savage calling himself a “shlock-meister” isn’t what you thought you’d be reading today, is it? But he’s fairly confident that he has a good grasp on horror, which is definitely evident through The Boogeyman, even if horror as a whole doesn’t always perform the best at the box office. Savage seems confident that he knows what the audience loves, and the audience loves The Boogeyman, so he must have done something right.
The Boogeyman is showing in theaters now.
Published: Jun 8, 2023 08:38 am