Boogeyman 3 : Le Dernier Cauchemar

I hated the first two films, I thought they were simply horror done wrong with no originality at all. Cookie cutter horror and done badly, really really badly.

The third was expected to be just as bad but was a pleasant surprise, it's still mediocre but its passable by comparison.

This time the film actually has a structure, a competent plot and the "Boogeyman" isn't bad at all in appearance/execution.

It follows a tried and tested formula, kids in uni getting picked off one by one by this malevolent force but the "Belief" system makes for some interesting scenarios.

The deaths are average, the script is passable and the movie as a whole is nothing even remotely special but compared to the first two this is a work of art.

Just about watchable stuff and certainly ending the trilogy on a high....ish note.

The Good:

Boogeyman looks great

Has a few very inventive ideas

A couple of the girls on the cast were great

The Bad:

Potential was squandered

Still very generic

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

That girl from Coronation Street & Hollyoaks doesn't know how to age! Seriously, she has access to the fountain of eternal youth and I demand a pint or two....or three...or a weekend of bathing in it! I'm approaching 40 leave me alone!

The boogeyman lives in closets, that's the urban legend in the US. Over here he lives under your bed and in other countries it's also somewhere else. What I mean is, the boogeyman is everywhere and curses anyone that crosses his destiny. And so all movies with boogeyman in it were cursed. From the first one in the eighties unto today nobody really liked them. Or they were cursed with poor effects, or with sad CGI. But number 3 in the franchise, is the best of them. Again it is a mix between CGI and at last a real person. And that makes it all a bit creepier. to compare it with the first one, there is already T&A in the first minutes and there is already blood too, two things we missed in the first part. And there is a lot of blood. Sometimes gallons of the red stuff flows on screen. They even put a bit of gore in it. A bit of lack of suspense in the storyline but it's a good starter for an entertaining evening.

I watched "Boogeyman 3" without having seen the previous 2, although they are in my collection. So I had no expectations to the movie, and I had little clue what it was all about. And it seemed that you didn't really need to have watched the first two movies to be in the loop.

"Boogeyman 3" is not rich on shocks, creepy moments or scares, though I have a decent enough amount of gore in it. I found this to be a rather dull movie for a horror movie. I wasn't thoroughly entertained and I sure wasn't feeling any sense of dread.

The story told in this movie, well it was a bit weak and there were some gaps in the overall flow of the story. But it did manage to pull through and close up nicely enough.

Not being familiar with the boogeyman from the previous two movies, I found the make up to actually be quite nice. He looked sinister enough, especially the face. However, and I must point this out, the noises he made, what was up with that? They were more of a hilarious thing than a scary thing. That really didn't work well for the movie. And why would he be chasing people when he can apparently just appear from any shadow or dark place? What was the point of chasing the tail of people? For shocking and scaring the people, sure. But if you think about it, it really made no sense.

The effects and CGIs in "Boogeyman 3" were good enough, and I liked what I saw. The blood, however, was a tad too red. But other than that, good enough job.

As for the acting and the people starring in this movie. I found most people to actually do a good enough job with their roles. Nothing award-winning here, but still good for a horror movie of this caliber.

If the "Boogeyman" series is an attempt at a slasher like Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger, then it is not much of a memorable character they have as the killer. There is nothing iconic about this boogeyman, sorry to say.

For a horror movie, "Boogeyman 3" came off quite weak, and there are lots of other horror movies out there far better. Now that I have seen it, I can honestly say that I will not pick it up and watch it again. I will, however, watch part 1 and 2, just for the sake of having seen them.

A psychological gore-fest awaits as the college students at Hammond Hall get slaughtered in their droves.

What differentiates Boogeyman 3 from other supernatural horrors is its ability to deliver constant suspense - albeit formulaic - throughout its 90 minutes on screen.

Critics of the film have denounced it as just another slasher fest with precious little to make it worthwhile. While the storyline is predictable, there is an element of psychological uncertainty that pervades the film.

How can something not be real if we really believe in it?

When a college girl named Sarah witnesses the gruesome murder of her friend, her life gets turned upside down. There is an all pervasive presence of evil manifested in the form of a demonic entity.

One after another students who begin believing in the Boogeyman legend are discredited, until they start dying and it gets scary as hell right through to the bitter end...

After Sarah (Erin Cahill) witnesses the supposed suicide of her friend, she must fight to prove that her friends and the rest of the college campus are under attack from a malicious force known as (you guessed it) The Boogeyman.

There's something I've learned while spending the majority of my film-watching life consumed by the horror genre: No matter how good or bad a film is, a sequel is always a good idea (in the minds of the producers, that is). From the ten Friday the 13th sequels (which range from great to insultingly bad) to the thirteen (with more coming) Witchcraft films (all of which are awful), no matter how unnecessary a sequel seems, you can always fit one in. These days, it seems even worse. Even seemingly unknown films are getting countless sequels. Now, I can understand the annual Saw installment. They're perfect Hollywood moneymakers: Lots of earnings with minimal risks. But, Boogeyman? Does this really need two sequels? The first one was bad enough (yet still somehow managed to earn more than double its budget at the box office), and the second was pretty bad as well. . . so, why a third? Well, they've got that $28 million they earned at the box office burning a hole in their pocket and, instead of using it on something worthwhile, why not throw a couple million at what they assume is a built-in audience. Is there a built-in audience? Would I count as a part of that simply because I've seen both? I sure hope not. Regardless, before watching, I had actually heard some not-so-bad things about this installment, so I thought I'd return to the subpar franchise once more. This is the last time though, I swear! Anyway. . . the film itself is pretty bad. Most notably, the amateurish acting and script make for a dull and unlikable movie. The direction seems very "TV movie" and the editing is awful, exchanging MTV-style jump cuts for real scares. As a whole, the film stands as a typically underwhelming, unscary, and poorly made low-budget horror that should be avoided by anyone other than the truest of fans of the first two Boogeymans (then again, if you like both of those, I don't know what you WON'T like).

Obligatory Horror Elements:

• Subgenre: Demonic, I guess? Or ghost, or something.

• Violence/Gore: There's a good bit of blood but none of the violence is really explicit enough to make it worth it.

• Sex/Nudity: A teensy bit of the homely girl at the beginning, but nothing too sexy.

• Scares/Suspense: A for effort, but flash-cuts aren't really all that scary. The acting was pretty frightening though.

• Mystery: Not really. Just pretty stupid.

• - -

Final verdict: 3.5/10. Lame, unoriginal, and unscary. Pass on this one.

-AP3-