The Boogeyman (2023)-- Ending Explained with movie spoilers

 

Plot: Will Harper and his family are haunted by a supernatural entity after a visit from Lester Billings.

You better behave or the Boogeyman will get you at night. The Boogeyman is right there, under your bed and hiding in the closet.

As kids, we were terrified of the legend, and of the prospect of being snatched away from the comforts of our home. The Boogeyman was never seen and was clearly a scare tactic.

Over years, the legend of the Boogeyman has featured in various tales. Even Stephen King wrote a short story about it that was featured in his short story collection NIGHT SHIFT.

THE BOOGEYMAN is based on that very short story although with a twist.

In the short story, it is Lester who plays the main role as he narrates his tale of an eerie incident that led to the death of his children. In the end, he learns that he has not been able to rid himself of the Boogeyman and that Dr Harper casts off his disguise to reveal his true form.

In the movie we meet Dr Will Harper and his two daughters Sadie and Sawyer. It is what happens to the family after a visit from Lester that forms the crux of the story.

THE BOOGEYMAN is an interesting movie about grief and family dynamics. The movie serves up decent scares but lacks inovation. There's nothing new here, and nothing you haven't already seen before.

Even the ending scene is a bit of a clichéd compared to the short story version where the last scene gives you chills.

But THE BOOGEYMAN is nevertheless an enjoyable horror movie.

THE BOOGEYMAN Movie Plot

A girl is awakened by a noise un her bedroom. A figure emerges from the closet and claims to be her father. In the next instant, we see blood on the photo frame.

We then meet the Harpers. Sadie is getting ready to go to school and looks glum. Will is struggling to take care of his two daughters. Not much is said at this point but it is shown that the family is dealing with a death in the family.

Sadie chooses to wear one of her mother's dress. Will is stunned to see her but tells her she looks nice. Clearly, he feels heartbroken.

He drops the two girls at school and lets them know he loves them. At home, Will begins seeing his patients and we learn he is a therapist.

Sadie is having a hard time dealing with schoolmates looking at her with pity and interest. One of her friends called Bethany meets up with her by the lockers. Sadie finds something in her locker that smells really bad. Her other classmates, come to see her, including Natalie who makes an offhand remark which leads to Sadie slapping her. Natalie shoves her and that stinky bag tears and whatever was in it  spills on Sadie, ruining the dress.

Sadie has a breakdown and runs out of school.

Meanwhile, Will finds a man at his doorstep who has come in without an appointment. Will is reluctant to see him but the man, who calls himself Lester Billings, convinces him to see him.

Will is disturbed when he hears that the man has lost his kids and that right before they died, they called out the Boogeyman's name. He uses a notepad to draw what his children used to see. Will takes one look at it and decides on the spot that nope, he doesn't want to see this guy anymore.

Will excuses himself and then finds Lester missing. Meanwhile, Sadie has returned and changes. She takes one sniff at her ruined dress and decides to wash it. While the machine is working, she hears a noise.

She roams about, trying to inspect the noise. Will finds her and signals her to be quiet since there is clearly a madman at loose. They enter the art studio, and find it thrashed.

When they close the door to the closet, they find Lester hanging.

Sawyer is returning home in the bus when she sees emergency services in front of her house. Her friend wonders aloud if Sawyer has lost her father too. Kids!

Sawyer is terrified and enters the house cautiously to find her father talking to the police and her sister sitting at the stairs. She joins her sister who takes her away.

After the police leave, Will tries to have a heart to heart with his daughters. Sadie accuses him of wanting to readily get rid of her mother's things but Will insists he is looking for closure.

The three retire to bed. Sawyer hugs her lamp that looks like a giant moon. She however seems comfortable hugging it. When she heard a noise coming from the closet, she gets spooked.

Whatever is making the noise, enters under her bed. She takes a peek down and sees a monstrous creature. We barely catch a glimpse so we still don't know what the boogeyman actually looks like. Anyway, Sawyer hurts herself when she falls off the bed.

Will takes his daughters to see another therapist, feeling guilty that he brought Lester into his house. The therapist talks to them about their mother and Sawyer mentions the boogeyman. Sadie is still not convinced. The lights flicker and the boogeyman makes his five second appearance again. His brief entrance and subsequent disappearance makea Sawyer wet her pants.

At home, Sadie notices a mold growing around the ceiling but doesn't bother telling anyone about it just yet. Sawyer hears a noise and leaves her room to inspect the corridor. She remembers to take her giant moon with her.

She rolls down her giant moon lamp down the corridor and hears it getting crushed. She gasps.

Meanwhile Sadie is busy snooping in her father's study and finds a recording of everything Lester said. She learns about the drawing and checks the dustbin for it. She finds a paper and uses a pencil to trace whatever was drawn on the former page, and is shocked.

Sawyer comes up to her later and slaps her. She warns her never to scare her again. Sadie is confused but Sawyer sees the drawing of the boogeyman in her hand and is stunned.

Sadie wants to get to the bottom of the mystery but needs help from her friend.

At school, she approaches Bethany and asks to speak to her privately. While Bethany apologizes about her friends' behavior, Sadie is more interested in pretty much twisting Bethany's arm until she agrees to drive her to Lester's house.

At the creepy, messy house, Sadie finds a woman called Rita who was Lester's wife. The paranoid woman tells her about her kids seeing the Boogeyman and how it was able to mimic voices and trick them. When she thinks she sees the Boogeyman, she fires a shot with her shotgun prompting Sadie to run for her life.

Bethany wants to know if what she heard was a gun shot but Sadie orders her to drive quickly.

At home, Sadie is still too rattled to hear Sawyer talking about the Boogeyman. When she shuts the door on her sister's face, she hears knocking. Before she can open the door, the Boogeyman crashes through the door and pretty much pours itself into her throat. Sadie wakes up thinking its a dream but she coughs.

When Will goes off with boxes to throw away his dead wife's things, Sadie stops him and takes the things downstairs to look at it and see videos of her and her mom.

Bethany talks Sadie into having a sleepover and she is excited to feel normal again after her mother passed away.

Of course Natalie comes and is her normal bitchy self. The friends are getting bored and in order to salvage the sleepover, Sadie suggests they smoke a joint. The friends are easily perked up and light it up and pass it around.

Sadie is a newbie and when she smokes, she begins to cough violently. She goes to the bathroom to throw up and has to remove a string from her throat.

Later, Natalie thinks its a great idea to lock her traumatised friend in the closet. The Boogeyman makes an appearance and Sadie freaks out. The door doesn't open and Sadie suspects her friends are playing a cruel prank on her. Bethany assures her they aren't. 

The door finally opens and Sadie slaps Natalie hard and throws her friends out of the house.

Sawyer doesn't care much about what is happening in the house because she is watching TV. Just then the Boogeyman appears and throws Sawyer against the TV.

The TV breaks and Sawyer is injured.

At the hospital Sadie is determined to put an end to the menace that is the Boogeyman.

THE BOOGEYMAN Ending Explained

Sadie goes back to see Rita as she thinks she may have a way to deal with the Boogeyman and also because the woman has a shotgun and Sadie is still a minor.

Rita has a nice plan up her sleeve: to use Sadie as bait and trap the Boogeyman.

The plan doesn’t work. Although Sadie is neatly tied up as bait, and the Boogeyman is caught in the trap, ammunition has no effect on him. He gets up and rips apart Rita who was celebrating the success of her plan.

Clearly, the Boogeyman does not like adults using teens as bait. Sadie manages to run away but receives a call from Will who has brought Sawyer back home. She hears commotion and realizes the Boogeyman has reached her house  and his intended prey is Sawyer.

At the house, Sadie finds Sawyer and the two sister team up and use fairylights to light up the basement and look for Will.

They find Will but he has been badly injured by the Boogeyman. The fairylights go off and the Boogeyman makes his move. Eventually, the Boogeyman is doused in lighter fluid. Sadie uses her mother's lighter to burn the Boogeyman, indicating that her mother is also helping the family defeat a monster.

That leads to the fire spreading throughout the house but the family manages to make an escape.

Later the family is shown visiting the therapist again. Hopefully they found a house to live in or maybe the firefighters were able to salvage the house?

As they leave, Sadie hears the therapist calling her. She turns around and sees no one. But the closet door is opening slowly.

The real therapist enters and Sadie closes the door.

The movie ends.

But obviously the threat of the Boogeyman remains.

THE BOOGEYMAN is an interesting take on Stephen King's short story of the same name but it does rely too much on horror tropes rather than offering some new scares especially when there is potential to do so with the material.

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