The Boy - Actually pretty good

It seems like ever since 2002's (US remake) of 'The Ring' those modern horror films which don't involve the undead or people in masks with chainsaws succumbs to the following template: woman encounters something supernatural, no one believes her, she confront the entity in the final act (and most of her friends/family die somewhere along the way). 'The Boy' is not that different.  Apart from the fact that it is.

If I was being cruel I could say that I've seen everything in this film before.  However, I actually really enjoyed it, finding it a lot better than many other of its recent competition.  Yes, it doesn't offer much in the way of 'new,' i.e. a woman takes a job as a nanny to a child in a big creepy, English house.  And she finds there's more going on than she expected.  It's just a lot of the cliches that normally come with this sort of story have been spun on their head and, many times, I thought to myself 'I know what's going to happen,' only to find that I was completely wrong.

Lauren Cohan (better known as 'Maggie' from 'The Walking Dead') is the lead as she travels to England to take a job as a nanny, partly in order to escape an abusive relationship.  Once she arrives, she finds that the 'child in question' is simply a doll (and a creepy one at that!).  Now, some of us would just walk out there and then (possibly thinking they were part of some 'hidden camera' TV show), but, because she feels like she doesn't really want to go back to America just yet and how easy taking care of a doll would be, she stays.  Guess what... she ends up regretting that decision.

There's not a massive cast and it's Cohan's show all the way (unless you could the doll itself, which deserves a certain amount of credit for creating mood and threat).  Plus you have a great atmosphere created all the way as you, like Cohan, slowly learn what's going on.  I won't go into the plot details too much as, like I say, it does enough to avoid horror conventions to take you places you may not see coming.

I know there's plenty of horror movies out there and this one may well get lost among the crowd.  However, if you like this sort of film I do suggest you give it a go and it may just be different enough to be worth your time.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one