A young American woman moves to England for a nanny position in a remote English village. It’s an innocuous enough setup for a film, except for one minor detail: The youngster under the woman’s charge is no child, but a creepy, life-sized doll.
That’s the premise of The Boy, the fifth film from horror director William Brent Bell (The Devil Inside), and the initial trailer shows chilling scenes filled with promise. At first glance, the film starring Lauren Cohan of The Walking Dead doesn’t seem all too different from the archetype killer doll flick in the vein of Child’s Play, or a slew of other iterations.
But The Boy has some twists. In this saga, we first meet the stoic elderly couple Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire who give Greta (Cohan) a list of strict rules to follow. “If you love him,” the list warns, “he will love you back.” “Don’t cover his face.” And perhaps most unsettling, “Don’t forget to feed him.” While the Heelshire’s “son” appears to be nothing more than a porcelain doll, as our protagonist soon discovers, there’s something decidedly wicked at work here.
Through the trailer, Brahms mysteriously appears in different places, even causing Greta to be thrown across the room in one scene. Eventually a spooked out Greta asks the grocery delivery man Malcolm (Rupert Evans) for help. The trailer later hints that (unsurprisingly) there’s a reason why Greta ended up as Brahms’ caretaker — and she’s not going to like it.
You’ve got some time to guess why Greta ended up at Brahm’s house, though, as the film from STX Entertainment and Lakeshore Entertainment doesn’t come out until January 22, 2016. Stacey Menear wrote the script for The Boy, which is being produced by Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Roy Lee, Matt Berenson, and Jim Wedaa. Rupert Evans (The Man in the High Castle) also co-stars.
