Boy in the Walls (2023) User Reviews

Somewhat devoid of thrilling elements...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 8 August 2023]

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2023 Lifetime movie "Boy in the Walls" without ever having heard about it. But I will say that the movie's synopsis sounded interesting enough, and thus I opted to sit down and give director Constance Zimmer's 2023 movie a fair chance.

The storyline in "Boy in the Walls", as written by Katrina Onstad and David Weaver, was fair enough. It was a pretty straight forward narrative, however I found that the movie was lacking thrills and there never really was a sense of the family living in the house being in any real danger. And that sort of made sitting through 87 minutes of this somewhat of a bland ordeal.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough. I wasn't familiar with the actors and actresses on the cast list, but they had some nice talents to portray the various roles.

For a thriller then "Boy in the Walls" was sort of a mundane viewing experience. The movie was devoid of any thrills really, and that was a shame, because the storyline certainly had potential.

Sure, "Boy in the Walls" from director Constance Zimmer, was a watchable movie, but hardly one that warrants more than just a single viewing.

My rating of "Boy in the Walls" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Based on a story

[sahlgoode · 3/10 · 11 August 2023]

In the opening credits, it's says "based on a true story"....well the story it's based on is the screenplay of the Toolbox Murders, The People Under the Stairs or more recently, Cobwebs. (IMO)

It's a home invasion movie with all the tropes that go with it: Nobody believes the heroine....medication is the issue....a bratty kid that's irritating af, ...the husband is out of town all the time.....let's not forget to wrap it all up with an emotion hokey ending.

The actors played their roles believably, but without anything original happening throughout the movie. I kept waiting for a plot twist, or a jump scare, but hey just didn't happen.

This movie is fine if you enjoy cookie-cutter plots, but there are so may home invasion movies that are worth the watch. If you skip this one, your 87 minutes won't be wasted.

Acting stiff as a board

[hypercube001 · 3/10 · 28 August 2023]

It was a movie for one of those days when you really can't seem to find anything worth seeing. After having watched Cobweb just a day prior, this one seemed to be in the same tone. Maybe the idea would be better in the hands of a totally different team, but here it seems to fall flat. The acting was stiff as a board. I hope that the actor playing the dad has a secondary job because acting is not for him. He literally seemed like an NPC. If anyone ever directs a movie about NPC's, I'm sure he'll get a role. The reactions, the delivery of lines seemed like it was done by an automaton. Not even an android. At least, Data in Star Trek, strived to become more human. Compared to this guy, Data WAS human. The actress playing the mom, was far better, though the bar was set pretty low anyway. The action was a bit predictibile, but if you don't set hopes too high, it's going to be ok. No big surprises, a standard horror recipe. The house, the family moving in, the annoying teenager. The girl was really obnoxious, but teens are like that most of the time anyway. Overall, grateful that the NPC was mostly non existent. Meh..I've seen worse. It works if there are no alternatives for the movie night and you set the bar low.

"True Story" that deserves better

[brianand-57043 · 3/10 · 18 October 2023]

Ok, so my sister was watching this one day when i came over her house to watch her dogs for a few hours ( i don't mind i love the dogs). As i was watching and read the summary of the film provided by her cable company it reminded me of a story i read before that happened in the 1980's. Sure enough, after a little digging i read that this movie was based primarily on the story i was thinking of, giving it the "based on a true story" worthiness.

It's based on the actions of teenager Daniel Laplante, whom in 1987 had been stalking and tormenting 2 sisters who were often left home alone by their father. Their mother had recently lost a battle with cancer, and the now widowed father had taken on a 2nd job to provide for his daughters, often getting home late. The one daughter, 15 years old was now responsible to take care of her little sister (8 years). 16 year old Daniel Laplante was a disturbed teen who had been sexually abused by his father and stepfather, began breaking into people's homes and ended up not only breaking into the home of these 2 girls, but also would spend days living in the walls even when the girls and their father were inside. Laplante often "tapped" on the inside of the walls to scare the girls, and the girls began thinking it was their dead mother trying to contact them. Over the course of 2 months, the family would find food missing, appliances turning on or off while they were out, and furniture around the house being moved out of place. One night, the girls discovered a terrifying message written on the basement wall saying "I'm in your room, come find me". They stormed out of the house to a neighbor's where they called their father. The father believed all of this was either a joke being played on him by the daughters, or that is was his daughters way of dealing with the grief over their mother's passing. The father left work early and came home to find his daughters were not only telling him the truth, but out the corner of his eye he saw Laplante in full make-up and dressed in his dead wife's wedding dress wielding a hatchet. The story goes in different directions with rumors floating around that he held the family captive or that he escaped and then came back and haunted the family more....but shortly after a stay in Juvenile detention for this incident, Laplante would go on to murder a pregnant woman and her 2 children during a home invasion.

As for this movie, it was a basic lifetime thriller will bad production and sub-par acting. The Daniel Laplante story is really horrifying story which surprisingly hasn't been turned into a horror film, or at least a thriller by now.

Unwatchable drivel

[sysgoddess · 3/10 · 26 December 2023]

Had there been anything else on or had I noticed that the channel was on the Lifetime channel I would not have watched a moment of this drivel. Unfortunately that was not the case and I wasted 15 - 20 minutes of my life watching this movie.

Unlikeable characters, stereotypical everything, subpar writing, acting and everything else. The good news is that with 5 - 7 minutes of commercial time my exposure to this trash was limited.

Truly this movie contained nothing original or of redeeming value and I can't stress enough that you should avoid this at all costs unless you possess a deep masochistic streak or are required to view this for some reason.

Absolutely a waste of time and resources.

true story or not this was pathetic!

[haroot_azarian · 10 December 2023]

What a stupid and pathetic movie!!! As it started to unfold I immediately thought of some type of Secrets at the Inn 2022 movie. Noises at night, things going missing etc.

But it turned stupid pretty quickly, so much so at the end where after Alisa pushes psycho onto a nail in a plank, she turns back and starts petting him holding his hand while psycho Joe rambles on about his dead mother etc. After everything psycho put Alisa and the rest of the family through! It is the highlight point of the stupidity of the story.

To be honest I was hoping Ethan was the secret dweller in the walls. He was cocky and slimy and he fit the bill, as the boyfriend did in Secrets at the Inn 2022, but it turned out to be a totally cuckoo kid whose mother had died apparently of suicide, and he'd been living there all this time.

It is so stupid how a mystery and a thriller suddenly take a huge U-turn towards the end of the movie. Mystery thriller and drama do not go hand in hand in a movie.

Anyway this was one of the worst Lifetime movies that I have seen. This is right after watching Abducted by My Teacher: the Elizabeth Thomas Story 2023, which I gave ten stars and very positive review!

If you are looking for a suspenseful thriller, don't watch this because you will be very disappointed at the end.