Boy in the Walls – 2023

Boy in the Walls is a horror/drama from 2023. It’s about this family movie out in the countryside after purchasing an old house, probably at a bargain price. The daughter immediately hates the place. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s “only 45 minutes into the city” as her father puts it. or it’s just the fact that she will be stuck there with her new stepmom. I understand the tension. It cannot be easy coming into a family and taking on the role of a parent when the biological mother has passed away with cancer. The boy doesn’t mind though. He can play soccer in the backyard and all that kind of stuff.

So far, Boy in the Walls is a story about a widower and his new wife and her relationship to the kids. It’s a pretty typical story, not much to discuss really. You know where it’s going and you know that they will eventually get along. That’s the way these stories go 99% of the time. But soon strange things start to happen. The house creeks more than even an old house should do. Things disappear and there’s a feeling that they’re being spied upon. The man in the family is not home that much, It’s never really spoken but I guess he works quite a distance from home and can only come home during the weekends. If even that.

Slowly Escalating

Boy in the Walls escalates kind of slowly. Some strange things happen, then more and more but not to the extent where everything is obvious. At one point I was into the theory that someone, maybe the husband is gaslighting her to drive her nuts. At another point, I thought that there were ghosts in the house and then I thought it was “the Others” kind of plot. Anyway, there are only victims here, no real winners except perhaps at the very end when the happy family shines through once more. The way that the daughter and her stepmom get close at last is very touching. It made me a little emotional. Few films have done that for me. I can only think of one. When in “Uncle Buck” John Candy’s character and the daughter reach mutual respect.

In the end, that is the whole point of the movie. Not just for the family to bond, but to emphasize the need to belong to something. To have someone who loves you in your life. If you’re totally alone in the world, maybe you’ll go mentally insane in the end. You can only take so much.

I think the acting is really good most of the time. I would have hoped that the story wasn’t so in-your-face moral but you can’t have it all. Boy in the Walls is not a very unique movie but it seems a bit more “woke” than usual. At least when it comes to ethnicity. It’s not a big deal, but something I noticed when I saw it. You can very well ignore it too. If you like a slow-building thriller with some horrifying ingredients you might like this one.