Stephen King does a hilariously half-hearted job of hyping the latest adaptation of his work

As one of the most heavily-adapted authors in the history of live-action, Stephen King isn’t going to go out of his way to relentlessly hype every single one of his works that makes the jump from the printed page to film or television, but that doesn’t make his half-hearted endorsement of The Boogeyman any less funny.

The terrifying first full-length trailer dropped yesterday, and it’s given even more reasons to get excited for what’s shaping up to be one of the best reinterpretations of a King story we’ve ever seen. Disney subsidiary 20th Century Studios is so confident in the movie that it’s been pulled from Hulu and upgraded to a theatrical release, while director Rob Savage’s Host was determined by no less of an authority than science to be the scariest film of all-time.

Even that doesn’t seem to be enough to have King lavish The Boogeyman with the utmost praise, though, because his response to the first official poster being dropped was as dryly hilarious as it was 100 percent accurate.

Succinctly conveying the fact that it was indeed a tweet from 20th Century Studios, King then doubled down on his unenthusiastic enthusiasm by offering a brief analysis of what he took from the footage.

In the iconic scare-mongerer’s defense, he isn’t wrong. That is indisputably a poster for 20th Century Studio’s The Boogeyman, and the trailer does look utterly petrifying. On the plus side, at least we know King isn’t in the company’s back pocket when it comes to furthering the buzz.