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TO BOOGEYMAN OR NOT TO BOOGEYMAN
By THE FAN GIRL NEXT DOOR

Apr 19, 2008, 12:36

Did you ever see a movie as a teenager and think, "This is the best movie, EVER!", Then as an adult see it again and wonder what drugs you were on during that time of your life to make you think a piece of shit movie like that was any good?

This has happened to me on a few occasions. I don't know what happens, maybe we see things through different eyes as we get older, become more cynical, harder to please OR, and this is the reason I tend to lean towards, maybe we just acquire some taste along the way.

When I was 13 I saw a movie called THE BOOGEYMAN (1980). I thought that movie absolutely kicked ass, I loved it. Also, it had somehow found its way on the infamous UK Video Nasties list and that sealed the deal for me! So, imagine my delight when I noticed it was on cable recently. I decided to cozy up on the couch, slip on my old Krokus T-shirt and relive some teenage fun!

Rarely do you realize you're going to dislike a movie just from the opening sequence but THE BOOGEYMAN holds this dubious honor. It rips off HALLOWEEN right off the bat with an exterior shot of a house but it doesn't stop there. The opening music is even reminiscent of the 1978 John Carpenter classic.

Young brother and sister, Willy and Lacy watch mom make out with her tough guy boyfriend. I know he is a tough guy because he is wearing a wife beater and a big scowl on his face. Mom decides it's time to get kinky, removes her stocking and puts it over tough guy's head. I really thought this was going to come into play later but it turned out to be just a kinky, foot fetish moment.

Of course, the kids are discovered watching this and young Willy is tied to the bed by the boyfriend, as punishment I suppose, while Lacy watches. Lacy eventually sneaks into the kitchen for a knife to cut her bro free but Willy has a different idea altogether. Time to kill the boyfriend! We see the knife and a POV shot from Willy (another HALLOWEEN rip-off!) as he heads off to kill the big lug making out with mom.
Enter years later, Lacy and Willy are now grown and living with their aunt and uncle on a farm. Lacy (Played by the beautiful Suzanna Love, who has the worst scream EVER) has a cop husband and a young son. Willy works the farm and hasn't talked since the night of the killing. Oh, how wonderful if the entire cast could have been mute as well! The movie plays like bad dinner theater. The only thing worse is the misplaced music that tries to create an air of tension. I am all for music to set a dramatic mood but while Aunt Helen carves a turkey or adult Willy feeds his pets? The score itself sounds like one of those pagers restaurants give you to let you know when your table is ready. Burmp Burmp Burmp.

The two siblings have made decent attempts at making a normal life for themselves but Lacy has bad dreams of that night and has tried to block it all out. Unfortunately the viewer doesn’t get off so lucky; we are treated to 4 flashbacks of what happened 7 minutes before. It is as if director Ulli Lommel felt his audience was comprised of complete idiots with really short attention spans. Repeatedly needing to be reminded that the grown people we are seeing on the screen are in fact the ones who were the kids on that fateful night. THESE ARE THE KIDS AS ADULTS, GET IT PEOPLE?

Lacy ends up in a psychiatrist’s office (Played by John Carradine, who obviously needed a paycheck BADLY) where we are treated yet to ANOTHER flashback. She was the little girl, who untied her brother, have we connected the dots yet people? The doctor comes to the conclusion that she is burying her memories (No SHIT Captain Obvious!) and that a visit to her old house would help jog her memory a bit. Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse Willy is A-OK, I mean everyone has a drawer stocked with sharp knives in their bedrooms, right?

The movie does try to throw off the viewer by making us think Willy could still be a killer. He has all the elements of a horror movie psycho. He doesn't talk, his mom was a whore and he likes to stare off in scary looking trances. He even attempts to strangle a neighbor who tried to seduce him. Mom was a whore so ALL women are whores. Anyway, the movie then decides it wants to be a supernatural thriller with the soul of the mean, dead boyfriend being stuck in a mirror in the old childhood home. Lacy sees this and smashes the mirror in an effort to destroy it.

However, Instead of just getting rid of the mirror for the simple fact it completely drives his wife mental with fear, her brilliant husband decides to keep the mirror. Later on it takes a dead priest, a possessed wife and numerous horrible accidents for the genius husband to realize that the mirror has got to go. Other stuff happened after that but I started thinking about some laundry that I had to do and if I remembered to pay the cable bill or not. That is always the mark of a good movie! Why couldn't there be a UK list banning shitty movies?

Oh, yeah, the ending left it wide open for a sequel. Hey wait, there WAS a sequel! THE BOOGEYMAN 2 came out in 1983, which from what I hear is mostly comprised of flashbacks from the first (SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 2, ANYONE?). Oh wait, there's even more. RETURN OF THE BOOGEYMAN came out in 1994 by some unrelenting asshole that felt we were getting nostalgic for the first BOOGEYMAN because even this version has flashbacks from the first in it.

Anyway, you get the picture. After the movie was over I got a bit nostalgic and not in a good way. It wasn't that I had lost yet another 82 minutes from my life by watching this experiment in boredom. It bummed me out that something I had remembered with such excitement wasn't the great experience that I had thought it was.

I have learned my lesson! I'll never chance ruining another happy horror movie memory again... Oh cool, MOTEL HELL is on in 15 minutes.

Until next time....



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