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The Boogeyman (15, 98 mins)
Verdict: Murder in the dark
Reality (12, 83 mins)
Verdict: Tense whistleblower tale
Like many a night-time horror, The Boogeyman exists in a parallel universe where big lights either don’t work or aren’t used.
People go about their daily business relying on tired old bedside lamps, open fridges or candles — a habit I’d quickly abandon if I thought I shared my home with a child-murdering beast who thrives in darkness.
The film is adapted from a short story by senior ghost-botherer Stephen King. His well-worn route to Hollywood brought us Carrie, The Shining and Misery.
We haven’t got Kathy Bates or Jack Nicholson here, but a C-list troupe of actors do a solid job of stringing together the jumps and bangs.
We’re at home with the Harpers: teenager Sadie (Sophie Thatcher), her younger sister Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair, a child actor’s name if ever I saw one) and their therapist dad Will (Chris Messina with greying, distressed-father-of-two beard).
The film is adapted from a short story by senior ghost-botherer Stephen King. Pictured: Sophie Thatcher as Sadie in The Boogeyman
The family are already mourning the loss of their mother when a supernatural twist stumbles their way.
A sweaty and beady-eyed man arrives at Will’s consulting room unannounced, with a goosebump-pumping tale about how his two children were killed by a shadowy monster.
In 20 minutes we are taken through the deaths of four people, with your man eventually hanging by the neck, chez Harper, as the fifth.
Cue the Boogeyman.
Once set loose in their home, the horror relies almost entirely on periods of silence followed by loud noises, or faces briefly glimpsed in shadows (turn that big light on!). It does the business. I screamed plenty. But then again, slam a door and I’ll squeak.
One neat evolution of the trembling, hand-held candle down a dark corridor trope is a wireless moon nightlight, rolled down a dark corridor. You can guess what it reveals at the end.
Although the emotional subtext of familial grief never really takes hold in you, when a plot is hatched to dispatch the Boogeybloke once and for all, I found myself punching the air in support and wriggling in anticipation. Note to self — a shotgun blast alone won’t do it.
It’s all packed into 98 minutes, so there isn’t time to drift away. A queue of set pieces come quickly enough, although once you get a proper look at the thing it does kill the terror somewhat. The quick glimpses are always more chilling than full-frontal CGI.
Arguably just as spooky is verbatim FBI procedural Reality. It’s slow stuff, but psychologically sinister.
Director Tina Satter has taken a 90-minute slice of transcript from an audio recording of the 2017 arrest of a U.S. national security agency translator, Reality Winner, and dramatised it. So far, so boring.
We begin with Reality arriving home in her car to find two FBI heavies at her door. A Dictaphone is clicked on, we hear the people’s actual voices, we see the waveform wobbling and the transcript clicking away on a word processor.
This retelling then takes off, sticking rigidly to every um, ah and stumble. And it’s fabulous.
The confusion and slow unravelling grips immediately. Why has Reality been arrested? What are they looking for? Does she know what is going on? Has she done something awful? Will she?
Arguably just as spooky is verbatim FBI procedural Reality. It’s slow stuff, but psychologically sinister. Pictured: Sydney Sweeney
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Reality’s cold stare (from a mighty Sydney Sweeney) betrays little, as the bumbling FBI agents waffle between asking mundane questions about her dog and barking spiky, warrant-backed instructions.
A ‘Crime Scene Do Not Cross’ tape is unfurled, but it’s ages until someone mentions a crime. I was hooked, waiting for every clue.
Josh Hamilton — one of the agents — has perfected the art of harmless-looking menace. He is dressed like a dad out for golf, yet even his offer of water is made with eyes that scream violence.
His partner (Marchant Davis) has arms like thighs and faux charm to make your skin crawl.
Slowly, the house fills with identikit Bureau men, sporting the same cargo trousers-and- pastel-polo-shirt combo.
The home is searched, questions go deeper and deeper into Reality’s work and habits and, eventually, a charge is revealed.
You can tell this was tried as a play first. The hyper-natural language really indulges in silences, little actually happens beyond peeling back Reality’s history, and the payoff isn’t as dramatic as you’d want.
At points, my own imagination got far too carried away with gunshots and fisticuffs, only to snap back to the extended static dialogue.
But it is a terrific feat of slow-ratcheting tension, and the sporadic reminders of the story’s truth (through documentary photographs, typed transcripts and bleeped redactions) make it prickle with excitement. Reality, it seems, is a movie winner.
Poor Spidey, trapped in a web of feeble plotlines
If you’re a Spidey devotee, I’m sure you’ll revel in Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (PG, 140 mins, *), a self-referential beast of a film.
The standard filmgoer, however, will find a lengthy web of confusion and the poorest storytelling.
This sequel has a 4D chess game of a plot; our Spider-Man, across multiple universes, has to battle interdimensional Spider-Men to try to stop a character covered in portals to those other universes from killing his dad. Less a Marvel and more a mess.
The animation impressively blends graphic styles across its different worlds, but two hours 20 minutes of entertainment it does not make.
Plot swamp aside, lifeless character faces, dead eyes and limp sketch-action left me bored rigid.
If you’re a Spidey devotee, I’m sure you’ll revel in Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse , a self-referential beast of a film.
In what felt like a fortnight, the previous film in the series is mopped up, this story is established and then cut off pre-climax with a ‘to be continued’ promise . . . or should that be threat.
Fifty years on from Noel Coward’s death, an archive-packed documentary, Mad About The Boy (12, 91 mins, **) takes us through his life, from precocious upstart (‘it was a matter of urgency that I become as rich and successful as possible’) to fading, tax-avoiding gentleman of Jamaica.But it’s an oddly superficial affair.
Fifty years on from Noel Coward’s (pictured) death, an archive-packed documentary, Mad About The Boy takes us through his life
There is nothing original, bar some readings of Coward voiced by Rupert Everett and a narration from Alan Cumming that is far too bright and ‘ITV teatime’.
If you’re a Coward fan, you’ll find nothing new here. If you’re after a gentle stroll through the obvious, this could be a good place to start.
I’m not sure Bizet would recognise this Carmen (15, 116 mins, ***), billed as a ‘complete reimagining’ of his opera. We’re in the U.S., not Spain, and melodrama is supplanted by rough realism.
Paul Mescal is Aidan, a former Marine turned southern-border guard who, after a shooting, is forced on the run with our Carmen (Melissa Barrera).
Mescal has an excellent, natural but underused singing voice. Barrera doesn’t stretch much beyond pained, beautiful expressions. But the flashes of intimate choreography keep things hot and the music (from Nicholas Britell, the man behind Succession’s tinkling theme) is welcome when it comes.
You can tell Benjamin Millepied was a choreographer and then a director. It’s visually striking but expect largely gentle drama with long, meaningful stares into the middle distance, occasionally interrupted by guitar and flamenco.
Paul Mescal (right) is Aidan, a former Marine turned southern-border guard who, after a shooting, is forced on the run with our Carmen (Melissa Barrera) (left)
