Girl meets The Boy in slightly scary thriller flick

The new horror/thriller film The Boy provides a genre-standard 90 minutes of baffling phenomena ending in a final twist, but may leave some viewers disappointed by underperforming in the scare department.

A young American woman named Greta (Lauren Cohen) flees her abusive boyfriend, Cole (Ben Robson), and lands a job as a nanny in a four-story stone house set back deep in the English countryside. The elderly couple’s (Diana Hardcastle and Jim Norton) 8-year-old boy, Brahms, has dark red hair and porcelain skin—literally. To Greta’s surprise, Brahms is a life-sized doll. Before leaving on an extended vacation, Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire give Greta 10 commandments for Brahms’ care: don’t cover his face, never leave him alone, kiss him goodnight, and more.

When Greta disregards the instructions, strange things begin to happen. She hears a young boy’s voice echo in the halls and sees shadowy footsteps pass outside her bedroom door. Brahms mysteriously changes locations, and some of Greta’s belongings disappear. Out of fear and desperation, Greta does an about-face. She sets a plate before Brahms at meals, gently carries him from room to room, and reads him bedtime stories. For a time, peace returns to the house.

Malcolm (Rupert Evans), a young Englishman Greta’s age, brings groceries to the Heelshire house once a week as he’s done for years. He explains the Heelshires’ odd arrangement, telling Greta beside a gravestone in the yard that the real Brahms died 20 years earlier in a fire.

“I know what it’s like to lose a child,” Greta confides to Malcolm, telling him she miscarried after Cole got her pregnant. Malcolm and Greta develop feelings for each other, and he agrees to stay at the house and see for himself what’s been going on.

The Boy (rated PG-13 for violence and terror and some thematic material) creates an ominous atmosphere with standard ploys but shortchanges viewers with relatively few hair-raising moments. Greta tiptoes up wooden stairwells and fumbles through a murky attic. The camera zooms in on mounted animal heads and repeatedly teases viewers with close-ups of a large painting of an unhappy family. And the film dangles questions about Brahms’ life and the reason for the elderly Heelshires’ departure.

Cole shows up, demanding that Greta return to America with him. He demonstrates violent disdain for Brahms, immediately reviving the terrors and forcing a showdown among all who claim an interest in Greta.

The film reveals a modestly surprising explanation for the house’s horrors and in its last creak paves the way for a sequel.