Stephen King’s books and short stories have been turned into some of the most commercially successful horror movies of all time, but could The Boogeyman be his biggest cinematic triumph yet? Due for release later this year, it appears to have all the ingredients needed to become another classic.
A 1973 Story Brought Up to Date
The Boogeyman was published back in 1973, with King’s short story first appearing in the Cavalier magazine. A few years later, it was published again, this time in the 1978 collection of King’s stories called Night Shift.
In the original story, we’re introduced to Lester Billings, who tells his psychiatrist that his three young children all died in mysterious circumstances. While the deaths of the first two were unexplained at the time, he caught the Boogeyman killing his third child, who screamed the creature’s name as it climbed out of the closet to kill him.
The trailer suggests that the new film will follow the original story closely, but we’ll need to wait to find out how it deals with the twist ending. Among the changes from the original, the mother of the children has died and we see how the evil entity that wants to cause them misery is brought into the house by a patient of their father.
This isn’t the first time that The Boogeyman has been adapted, as it’s been made into a stage play and short movie in the past, while a 2005 movie adaptation tweaked the plot. This new version will be released on June 2 by 20th Century Studios.
Is This a Good Time to Release The Boogeyman?
The entertainment industry is currently more diverse than ever before, but there’s still a lot of interest in horror movies like this. Insidious: Far the Dark, Haunted Mansion, and The Nun 2 are among the most exciting new horror releases Canadians are looking forward to in 2023.
Our interest in horror movies can also be seen in the way that this genre has crossed over into areas like gaming. 2022 brought terrifying adventures like like A Plague Tale: Requiem, Evil Dead: The Game, and Madison. There have been surprisingly few modern video games based on this author’s works though, with early efforts such as 1985’s The Mist and 1993’s The Lawnmower Man now looking rather dated.
When we check out an online casino in Canada inspired by films, for example, we can see slots with characters loosely based on some of our favorite movie heroes, and also horror-themed slots such as Afterlife Inferno, Bloodlines, and Haunted House. These games are played like classic slots, but with graphics and sound effects that appeal to horror fans.
Among the other upcoming Stephen King adaptations, a prequel to the much-loved Pet Sematary was green-lit a couple of years ago and is said to be based on the origins of the mythology and the rituals in the town. It’s set for a release with Paramount+, with Lindsey Berr directing it and Jack Mulhern, Natalie Alyn Lind, and Forrest Goodluck among the cast. A Kurt Wimmer-directed version of Children of the Corn was recently released but made significant changes to King’s original story of the same name.
Things have gone quiet lately on Overlook, which is an idea for a spinoff of The Shining. One of the most successful and critically acclaimed movies based on King’s stories, this 1980 movie starring Jack Nicholson was filmed mainly in studios in England but the hotel exterior shots show a real hotel in Oregon. The spinoff series was proposed by J.J. Abrams and originally intended for HBO Max, but the most recent reports confirm that it’s likely to land on Netflix instead.
Given the popularity of other movies based on King’s writing, there’s a good chance that The Boogeyman is one of the most successful horror movies this year, but there’s no doubt that this is now a highly competitive industry where fans are becoming more demanding as the choice of films and other media increases.
