Call Your Therapist: A QUIET PLACE Writers To Adapt Stephen King’s THE BOOGEYMAN

The Boogeyman is one of Stephen King's most disturbing short stories. The mini-nightmare (contined in the author's infamous Night Shift collection) revolves around a possibly paranoid, schizophrenic man relaying the details of three child murders to his psychiatrist, while simultaneously blaming the heinous crimes on a possibly invented supernatural entity (known by the titular childhood closet-dwelling phantom). 

Running only a handful of pages in length, The Boogeyman contains some of King's most upsetting imagerey ("claws like spades") and ends on a note that's truly revolting. For this writer, it was an early highlight of diving into the master writer's unique brand of scary storytelling, having imprinted on my brain the chilling, crunching noise of children's bones breaking. 

The Boogeyman has already been adapted for the screen once - in the '83 VHS B-movie relic Night Shift Collection - which saw Frank Darabont transforming The Woman In the Room into a short movie and Jeff Schiro offering his take on King's bizarre tale of probable pyschosis. Looking back on that work, it's a pretty faithful adaptation, accented by a wonky synth score and some garish cinematography. 

Now, the writing duo behind one of King's favorite '18 films are coming together to shape the short story into a feature, as A Quiet Place's Scott Beck and Bryan Woods will pen the script for 21 Laps producers Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, and Dan Cohen (Stranger Things). No director has been attached as of yet, but one wonders if Woods and Beck will also step behind the camera, as they're currently wrapping production on their latest horror project, Haunt. 

The Boogeyman is just the latest in the King craze that's overtaken movies following the massive success of IT: Chapter One. Chapter Two arrives next September (with an all-star cast), along with a new take on Pet Sematary (which is sporting an equally impressive array of actors). This project just shows that all of King's writing - from the most famous titles to lesser known novellas - are being explored for proper scare cinema. What a time to be a horror fan! 

So, what do you guys think? Did The Boogeyman fuck you up as a kid, too? If so, who would you like to see play Lester Billings and Dr. Harper? Sound off in the comments below!