The boogeyman is a legend that dates a long, long time ago. He has no set origin because he is used in just about every culture. In each culture the boogeyman scares the  kids in a variety of different ways but the similarity is that the boogeyman is feared by children and is viewed as evil. Although he has no set shape or look, the boogeyman is still one of the scariest imaginations that children have. This boogeyman often lives under their beds or in their closet. In most cultures the boogeyman is used by adults to scary naughty kids and to try and keep their kids from doing bad. In some cases  the boogeyman still haunts adults imaginations because of trauma that they had when they were kids and this is what I believe is happening to Lester Billings.

For Lester this feeling of the boogeyman in his closet is all too real. In Stephen King's "The Boogeyman" we see how a character from a childhood imagination is real and is taking over one man's life.

Summary

The short story starts off with the main character, Lester Billings, laying on a couch talking to Dr. Harper. Dr. Harper is a psychiatrist who is trying to help Lester, who believes he is responsible for the deaths of his children. Lester tells Dr. Harper he was married and soon after they had three children Denny, Shirl, and Andy (Lester's favorite), all about a year or so apart. When the kids were old enough, Lester would move them into their own room. Each and every one of the children would cry of the boogeyman but Lester didn't acknowledge it because he didn't want his kids to grow up being sissies. One by one Lester swore that the boogeyman killed his children but he wouldn't tell anyone of the boogeyman. The deaths of  all three of the children were ruled to be accidents. Denny died from crib death, Shirl of a brain convulsion, and Andy of falling out of his crib.  Lester finished talking to Dr. Harper and tried to make another appointment. When Lester went back to tell Dr. Harper that he couldn't make the appointment he found the Dr. Harper was actually the boogeyman who killed his kids.

Analyzing the Text

Just by looking at the title, "The Boogeyman," you can already get some sense that this story is not only going to be a horror story but also a fictional one. Let's be honest, there is no such thing as a boogeyman beside the one that lives within the imaginations of kids or in this case Lester Billings. Stephen King on the other hand turns this fictional character into a killer.

At the beginning of the story the reader can tell right away that King is going to be using flashbacks to tell the story. King starts the story off in a psychiatrist office which points to the fact that the patient needs to talk about something that has happened in his past. These flashbacks take place mostly at night and in the home of Lester and Rita Billings. The main character (Lester) also says that he needed to tell his story. The character is implying that he has to tell Dr. Harper something tragic that has happened to him. When Lester starts to tell Dr. Harper of what has happened, the reader starts to get a feeling of horror and fear. By starting the story with this sense of fear and horror, it shows that Lester knows he has something mentally wrong. Lester wouldn't visit the psychiatrist if he thought that something real killed his kids. With this the read to get a sense of the tone and what to expect.

The diction that King uses throughout the entire story is made to keep that sense of fear in the reader.  It also creates a kind of suspense that makes the reader question what the boogeyman is going to do next. Some of the words and phrases that create this sense of fear and suspense are;

• "Murdered"

• "Screaming"

• "Blood"

• "...thrown dirt on three tiny coffins."

• "Slithered"

• "...you helped it kill me."

• "He was all rotted and black-green..."

King used all of these words and phrases to create this imagery within the readers head. He used very detailed descriptions of when the children would wake up or what they would do or say when they did wake up.  The imagery that popped in my head when reading was my own personal picture of a boogeyman who could be doing this to the children and what the children looked like after the boogeyman had killed them.

There is a pattern that stood out to me and that was within each of the children's' deaths. Each of these deaths were similar because they weren't brutal deaths. They were all ruled as "accidents" but Lester thought he knew better. He knew it was the boogeyman that each of the children cried about but he never said anything about the boogeyman, not even to his wife. So this makes me believe that the boogeyman was all in his own imagination. Other than them all being ruled as accidents they all also had a closet door that was left open, "just a crack," after every child's death. Lester is certain that he left the closet doors shut the night before every death but he never knew for a fact.  Another thing I notice was that Lester wanted to always be right and never wanted to be proven wrong by his wife. He didn't want his children growing up "sissies," so he made them sleep in their own rooms when they were old enough. He also proved that he never wanted to be wrong because even when Denny (his first born) would cry of the boogeyman he would leave him in his room crying because, "you can't overprotect kids." I believe King has Lester feel this way because growing up Lester was over protected by his own parents which made him afraid of everything. After Denny's death, Lester still tried proving to his wife that he is always right because even when Shirl and Andy (supposedly his favorite)  would cry of the same boogeyman he left both of them in their rooms to be killed. By Lester doing this, I felt as though he wanted to prove to his wife that he was a "man" but by the looks of it he was afraid to even to tell his wife of this boogeyman, who he believed was killing his kids, makes him less of a man. I see it as him not wanting his kids to grow up scared like he was so he neglected them by not paying attention to them when they would cry for him at night.  

At the end of the story King throws in a lot of irony.  Lester is asked by Dr. Harper to make an appointment to come talk to him again. When Lester leaves to go make that appointment he notices that the secretary is gone. He goes back to tell Dr. Harper that and sees that the room he was just in was empty with just a closet door. That closet door was cracked just a little with the boogeyman inside holding a mask. I believe this to be ironic because like I said before in all three of his children's deaths the closet doors where left open just a crack. This also proves that the boogeyman is still in Lester's head and is haunting him. Lester is so scared of the boogeyman that he didn't want his kids growing up with that fear so by ignoring them he felt as though he was helping but in reality ignoring them is what killed them.

Analyzing the Video

At the beginning of the video there was slow, creepy music playing. This is because this type of music has been associated with horror movies and films. So when someone hears music of this nature they automatically get a sense of fear and suspense. By playing this music it allowed the director to let the audience know that what they are about to watch is a horror story. The quality of the film itself wasn't the best because it was filmed in 1982. This plays a huge effect on the story because back then, the graphics aren't as good as they are today. At points in the1982 version I was confused as to what was happening. It was hard to see when the picture of really dark because of all of the pixels. What was considered scary or frightening back then isn't so frightening or scary today. The graphics aren't as realistic back then as they are today. Below shows examples of what I mean. To the left is the 1982 version of "The Boogeyman" that I watched and to the right in the 2010 version. Just between these two photos the one on the right already has a more horrific look.

The 1982 version also had a huge impact because some parts of the video were hard to understand. When the characters would talk some of the words sounded muffled and I would have to guess or go by the text as to what I believed they said.  I believe that this goes back to how old the video is and the technology that they had to use. But this goes to show that the technique and quality of the video can also have a huge impact on the story as a whole.

The director of the short film used diction in a way to scare the audience and keep then on the edge of their seat. His diction in the video was very similar to the same diction King used in the book, from "murder" to "slithered". The director does this so that the movie can hold the same feeling that the book does. Although it is sometime hard to understand what the characters are saying, the audience can still get the feeling of fear. The character playing Lester I believe does a good job. He fits the description of Lester and definitely acts as though he is Lester.

Just like the book, the tone for the entire video is horror. The video, like the book, focused on the flashbacks of Lester's past. The video kept switching between the flashbacks and what was happening at the psychiatrist office, just like the book did. The video however, didn't go into a lot of  detail like the book. The video was sort of vague and just barley touch on how each of the children died. To me it felt like the book was going into depth but the video was short and didn't beat around the bush. For the most part everything in the book went right alongside with the video. After all three of the children's deaths the closet door was cracked open, and Lester did everything it said he did into the book (movements and such). There were a couple of things I noticed that where different between the two which were:

• The beginnings

• Script

• Closet door in the office

• The ending

The beginning of the book starts off with Lester talking to Dr. Harper and in the video the beginning starts off as a flashback that Lester is having of finding Denny dead in the bathroom. I believe the author did this so that it can set the tone for the video but also so that the audience can get a little background information of the story. The next thing I noticed was different was that the characters in the video didn't follow along word for word with the book. The characters did at some point say what was in the book but they would either only say half of what was there or add in something that wasn't. I think this is because the director thought that he could make it easier for the audience to understand and he is trying to persuade them into thinking what he believed King meant. Another thing I noticed was in the psychiatrist office. In the book Lester stares at the closet door and tells Dr. Harper to open it so he can look inside but in the video Dr. Harper asks if Lester wants to see inside and Lester says no.  In all honestly I don't know why the author would change this around.  I think that Lester telling Dr. Harper to open it questions Lester's sanity and proves that the boogeyman is all in his head. The ending isn't much different besides the fact that in the book the boogeyman is holding the mask of Dr. Harper and in the video Dr. Harper is the boogeyman. I believe the director did this because throughout the entire video the director never shows what the boogeyman looks like, let alone that King also never describes the boogeyman. They leave it up to their audience to imagine what he could look like and if the boogeyman is just in Lester's head like I believe it is.

In the end, the short story by Stephen King and its film are very similar. Although I do believe that Lester is imagining the boogeyman. I don't believe that the boogeyman is the killer because Lester never brings it up to anyone. He feels as though no one will believe him and they will think he is crazy. Another thing that points to the boogeyman just being in Lester's head is the fact that all the deaths were ruled as accidents and all could of been avoided if Lester would of just went to check on them. What really makes me believe this is that Lester has to go to a psychiatrist because he knows mental there is something wrong and that the psychiatrist ends up being the boogeyman.