Movies like The Boy

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 is 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.

Nine year old Ted lives with his father John in the family’s run-down, failing motel in Colorado. Ted’s mother has left them; it later transpires she ran off to Florida with one of the motel guests. John is basically a good-hearted man and an affectionate father; but he retreats from his responsibilities into alcoholism and pretty much leaves his son to his own devices. Ted does some chores around the motel, tends to the family’s chickens, and plays with his pet bunny. He has developed a morbid hobby of collecting animals that have been killed on the road outside the motel. His father pays him for each roadkill he finds, and Ted saves the money in a tin he hides under his bed. He also puts food on the road, hoping to lure animals.