The Boy is a 2015 American horror film directed by Craig Macneill, written by Macneill and Clay McLeod Chapman, and starring Jared Breeze, David Morse, and Rainn Wilson. It was based on a short film by Macneill and Chapman, Henley, which was in turn loosely inspired by a novel written by Chapman, Miss Corpus. Breeze plays the titular boy, a budding serial killer (Ted Henley), and his father operate a floundering family business—The Mt. Vista Motel. It’s just the two of them since Ted’s mother ran off with a guest years earlier, stealing the motel’s soul and one of its last regular patrons. Since then, Ted’s father has drifted into despondency—becoming a living ghost, haunting his own motel and leaving Ted to fend for himself. In his isolation, unchecked by the bounds of parenting, friendship, or affection, Ted's fascination with death awakens with destructive consequences.
Not to be confused with The Boy or Boy (2010).
This Film provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: At the very least, Ted's Father is a neglectful drunk.
- Adults Are Useless: Lampshaded by Ted's father when he states that the nine year old boy has the business sense. He also does nothing when Ted is beaten by a group of drunken teenagers
- Can't Hold His Liquor:John Henley. He stumbles around and even breaks a lamp in his room. This arguably applies to the teenagers too.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: John. He is running a failing business after all.
- Creepy Child: Ted Henley
- Crown of Horns: Ted Wears one when he burns all of the guests at the hotel alive, including his father.
- Death Trap: What Ted uses to kill William
- Despair Event Horizon
- Frame-Up:At the end Ted blames William for the crime
- Gilded Cage:The Hotel serves as this for Ted. He wants to leave and take a bus to Florida to find his mom, but among the other problems with that. his father stole the money he needed for a bus ticket and pays little attention when he suggests that the two of them leave the Hotel.
- Hell Hotel: One guess...
- Kill It with Fire: Yup.
- Missing Mom: Ted's mother left with a trucker who rented one of the hotel's rooms.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer for the film shows Ted holding a young girl's head under water while they play in the pool.This scene never occurs in the film. Instead, he does this to a young boy, who quickly leaves the pool afterwards.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Unlike other films of its type, none of Ted's kills happen on-screen. William's death is only revealed when the aftermath is seen in a flashback, and we don't see any bodies when Ted burns the hotel down.
- Shower of Angst: Ted.
- Sound-Only Death: When Ted kicks the chickens to death after finding out that his father took the money he'd saved for a bus ticket.
- Teens Are Monsters
- The Lost Lenore: William's Wife.
- Would Hurt a Child: The teens that stay at the hotel for prom night.
