The only person who can help her in this situation is a guy only she can see, Larry Houdini. Larry tells Frances that she's being framed by the Boogeyman, and he seems to know what's going on better than she does. Frances has a difficult time believing what Larry tells her, because she's always tried to look at the world like an adult, using logic and facts to explain everything, after her little brother Darwin almost died from leukemia a few years ago.
Over time, the Boogeyman's pranks become more insidious and incriminating, which further ruins Frances's life, so the unlikely pair decides to put their heads together to find this Boogeyman and get rid of him before he hurts someone.
The film contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: Why Frances can see Larry is never addressed.
- Children Are Special: Only small children can see Larry (an Imaginary Friend), and Larry mentions that the tetrafuse, a device to rapidly age Boogeymen and make them harmless, is "so simple, a child could understand it. In fact, a grown-up couldn't understand it at all."
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: How Larry is restored to normal, and how all Boogeymen can ultimately be defeated.
- Clear My Name: Frances goes on a quest to prove that she is not to blame for the prank epidemic.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Larry, much to Frances's dismay.
- Comically Missing the Point: Larry, often, unfortunately for Frances.
- Dance Battler: Larry employs some dance steps while dodging the Boogeyman.
- Darker and Edgier: Than the Disney Channel's usual films, to a point it's the TV equivalent to Disney's horror feature films like The Watcher in the Woods and the film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes back in The '80s.
- The content was considered so dark at the time that this was the only DCOM for a while that received the TV-PG rating, much like how the aforementioned 80s films received a PG rating in contrast to Disney's films' usual G rating.
- Eldritch Location: The Boogey World, home of the Boogeyman.
- Expy: The Boogeyman can be seen as this to the Phantom/Henry Ravenswood from Disney's theme park Disneyland Paris's own take on The Haunted Mansion dark ride attraction, Phantom Manor, as unlike most Disney characters, both the Phantom and the Boogeyman are each a Knight of Cerebus Vile Villain, Saccharine Show who are each a scary and terrifying Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant even Disney audiences would be frightened by.
- Evil Brit: The Boogeyman, who is played by Steve Valentine aka Harry Flynn.
- For Happiness: Larry makes friends with every kid he can and believes in being nice to everyone.
- Foreshadowing:
- Frances says Larry's constant costume changes remind her of Darwin's action figures. Very appropriate, as Larry used to be Darwin's imaginary friend.
- When Frances demands to know why the Boogeyman is after her, Larry asks her if she ever had an imaginary friend. Who does the Boogeyman turn out to be but Zoe, the old imaginary friend she abandoned.
- During one of the scenes in Frances's room, we see she has a doll in a fancy pink outfit. This is the exact same outfit Zoe wears.
- Freudian Excuse: Frances stopped believing in Zoe because Darwin used to be very sick and she believed she had to grow up to cope with the situation.
- Genre Throwback: As noted in Darker and Edgier, this film is this to Disney's 1980s horror feature films such as The Watcher in the Woods and Something Wicked This Way Comes for their unconventional frightening content and the dark fantasy comedy during the same decade The Devil and Max Devlin for having Horror Comedy elements like this film, while Larry is basically a Good Counterpart of Bill Cosby's character Barney Satin as a Magical Negro supporting character who the protagonist can only see, but no one else, but once he becomes a Boogeyman himself Larry nearly became an Expy of Barney, especially compared to Barney in his true, demonic form in the climax.
- Grub Tub: Weaponized as a prank by the Boogeyman; he adds Jell-O powder to the school swimming pool, causing a high diver to get stuck in it.
- Helicopter Parents: While well-meaning, Frances's parents are far too inclined to not trust that she's being honest with them about not being responsible for the pranks going on and barely speak to her about it. They seem to prefer to spend their time accusing her of being the ringleader of a gang of hypnotizing delinquents.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Frances, in the eyes of her family, her best friend, the school and the townsfolk due to being framed by Boogeyman.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Boogeyman.
- Humans Are Bastards: This appears to be how all Boogeymen feel, logical when one considers that they are imaginary friends whose child stopped believing in them too soon, literally causing them to mutate into monsters against their will.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight:
- Frances tries this on a newly Boogified Larry; it takes this and Darwin clapping his hands and reaffirming his belief in imaginary friends.
- This ends up working with the boogeyman they're facing, Frances getting through to her old imaginary friend and bringing her back.
- Insistent Terminology: After the "boogeyman" changes back into Zoe, she corrects Larry's use of the masculine term with, "boogey-person".
- Knight of Cerebus: The Boogeyman is a purely evil spirit who enjoys being bad, and seems intent on tormenting Frances and ruining her life.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Larry says something similar after he's returned to normal and spots the Boogeyman.
- Magical Negro: Larry, an Imaginary Friend ally of Frances with an appearance of an African-American.
- Mouse World: The Boogey World is comprised of all the old junk that could end up under people's beds, but giant in scale. Frances and Larry use an rc toy car as a real car at one point.
- Nice Guy: Larry, in a Cloudcuckoolander kind of way.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Larry and Zoe.
- One-Gender Race: Boogeymen, apparently, since Zoe appears male as long as she's in boogeyman form.
- The Reveal: The Boogeyman is no other than Frances's old imaginary friend Zoe, who became the Boogeyman after Frances stopped believing in her.
- Sanity Slippage: Boogeymen are created from Imaginary Friends whose children have stopped believing in them before they can find and make friends with a new child.
- Scary Black Man: Larry, when he turns into a Boogeyman.
- Something Only They Would Say: Frances realizes something is up when the boogeyman calls her "Frannie". This was the nickname her old Imaginary Friend Zoe gave her before Frances forced herself to grow up.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: The movie is about fighting a Boogeyman, which is stated to be an imaginary friend whose kid stopped believing in them before they could find another kid to bond with.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Frances, once she mellows out a bit.
- X Meets Y: Something Wicked This Way Comes meets The Devil and Max Devlin, appropriate as they are all own by Disney, while this film is a Disney Channel television movie.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Subverted with the Boogeyman, as this television movie is much darker in tone than the Disney Channel's usual TV films.
- Wham Line: When the Boogeyman continues to torment Frances after a failed attempt to stop it, Frances says this and it finally stops the Boogeyman for good.Frances: STOP IT, ZOE!
