Research for The Boogeyman

The original 'The Boogeyman' was a short story written by Stephen King, which was published in March 1973 in the Cavalier . The original idea of the Boogeyman was a fantasy and fictional figure that was created by parents to scare children into behaving. The most popular myth is that this creature hid under the child's bed and would come out during the night. Although being a take told to children, he them has been continued and ideas based around this concept for more sinister...and quite frankly terrifying horror movies.

Picture above from Pixar's Website.

Although there are also ideas linked to the bogeyman from animation films such  as Monsters, Inc. The idea for this animation came from its director Pete Docter, who as a child always believed in the beings hiding in his bedroom. This film starts claiming that 'since the first bed time,all around the world, children have known that once their mothers and fathers tuck them in, and shut off the light, that there are monsters hiding in their closets, waiting to emerge.' This film reintroduced the idea of the Boogeyman back into children's minds, even if they had not been told of the previous tale, it planted a seed about the existence of the nighttime monsters. When looking at this particular film, it got me thinking about a television show that I sometimes watched when I was younger. The show was aimed at children, on the channel Nickelodeon. The cartoon, Real Monsters, followed a group of monsters, (or 'monsters-in-training')  as they went to school/college and learnt how to scary people. Every episode followed the main characters as they tried to frighten both children and adults. This reminded me of this project as there were all the different scenarios that they scared children in, yet it was aimed at children too.

 When researching for this production, we found that many films encompass ideas of the 'boogeyman' within their plot.
Some films that Harriet had recommended were; Shutter Island, due to the idea behind it, as people start to vanish, the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio has to find out who the murderer is. Other films I looked into were the 2006 Pan's Labyrinth. I have included a picture (right) from the IMDB website. This creature looks very alien like and is just one of the interpretations I came across when researching. The way the creature's skin sags and the eyes in the hands are rather haunting. Also as I immediately associate the Boogeyman with a thing that lives under a child's bed, having eyes on the hands would be very creepy as I can imagine a boney fragile hand reaching out from under the bed and being able to see perfectly, making it even more dangerous. Other films I looked at were Jeeper's Creepers, Rumple Stiltskin and even the Christmas story of The Grinch, due to it being based at children again but having a 'baddie' play the main character. 

Whilst Researching for this Project, I also stumbled across Terry Wolfinger's artwork. To look at more I went on his official website, which was rather creepy on its own, as it used a scary looking rag doll as the curser. His images are rather scary looking for animations but remind me off the Boogeyman story.