Boogeyman

Something I've noticed lately is that horror movies make for great previews. When I saw the trailer for BOOGEYMAN I was thinking, "This film is gonna rock!" WRONG! This is another terrible Hollywood scare flick that couldn't scare a 12 year old. I jumped more at the preview than the movie. The worst part is the story is so heavy handed that it steals any fun out of this convoluted mess. Let's remember what were making here, guys, it ain't no Oscar contender. Too bad the movie wasn't just a shade worse so it could enter that so-bad-it's good realm. This one is just bad.

There are a lot of great horror movies out there these days so skip this one!

Let's acknowledge the fact that practically everyone HATES this movie. Yet it had a lot of potential. What went wrong? Producers, film students, TAKE NOTE. Its EVERYTHING BAD in a horror movie, and makes us feel cheated, insulted, and burned.

Its the kind of movie that LOOKS like something we'd be interested in. The trailer showed a pretty creepy scene: a slow walk to a front door of a Gothic-style Victorian farmhouse, a scary hand on the door. The stuff of childhood nightmares and imaginings.

Additionally, the movie had a lot going for it -- a spooky-as-hell soundtrack, a seriously creepy Gothic farmhouse which even old-house fanatics might shudder at being alone in at night. Small-town stagnation and isolation. Unhelpful country people who just don't like outsiders. The stuff of moody, haunting atmospheres.

But, rather than play on a slow, spooky, dreamlike ambiance the house, the terrors, the memories of the lost dad and his murder/abduction, we get a woosh of distracting angles and wild camera swoops and flashes of light that are neither realistic nor scary.

The eerie soundtrack is constantly interrupted by flashes of light and noise that are supposed to 'scare' but show nothing and only interrupt the brooding atmosphere.

And what is the Boogeyman in this movie, anyway? Balled lightning? An explosion of distorted, computer-animated birds? a malfunctioning transmitted cartoon image of the grim reaper? Hard to tell. Bad computer animation spoils the image. We can't even imagine.

We certainly do NOT see any Boogeyman. Not the guy with the creepy hand on the door in the trailer. If we see anything at all, it's like video game graphics distorted by a glitch in the imagery.

C'mon, producers -- GIVE US THE BOOGEYMAN. Not videogenic mess.The Boogeyman must be a CHARACTER we can see -- preferably something that talks or has some other habit that frightens us. Freddy Krueger, Jeepers Creepers, the Tall Man on Phantasm, Reverend Henry Kane on Poltergeist or the chauffeur on Burnt Offerings who is too thin and tall and has a freaky, inappropriate grin and piercing stare -- are Boogeymen. (Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Leatherface are perhaps another type of boogyman, but their agenda is less frightening because they exist merely to kill)

Rather than being killed or abducted by the boogeyman which we see in the trailer,we instead see people being bounced around the walls of rooms and hallways like rubber balls. Just one impact at this overdone velocity would kill a person instantly, but here, we see people bounce around the walls and get back up, unharmed, to 'fight.' and see victims instantly wrapped in saran rap, etc. On and on it goes.

Directors, producers, please take note. It just doesn't work. Things that move faster than the eye can see are not scary. Cheap computer graphic effects don't work. Loud, startling noises are a cheap substitute for brooding horror or shocking terror, and don't work.

The true 'Boogeyman' archetype that really scares the crap out of us is a slow, menacing presence. We may only get glimpses of him or he may torment us from the closet or under the bed as in Poltergiest, or he may come a'calling like a traveling salesman or road menace. True Boogeymen must be seen in closets, we see him in the mirror on closet doors, we see him hanging like a scarecrow or hanging from a noose like a kite caught in a tree. They come uninvited to take what they want; they can appear out of nowhere and can seem to disappear just as fast; they usually have personalities and voices that creep us out no matter how many years pass; they are invincible, and they like for you to learn of their invincibility as you try to fight them off. They love to torment and terrorize their victims before killing/abducting/soul eating/dragging them off to hell or whatever they do.

True boogeymen may have some weaknesses. In better horror movies and nightmares, they can sometimes temporarily be resisted or staved off by certain psychological or spiritual disciplines, or religious rituals but they cannot really be destroyed. At best, they may leave us to find an easier target, but they usually get what they want.

I was not impressed at all with this movie; I'm even more disgusted by the fact that they had a lot of good actors/sets/technologies to work with.

For instance, the character of Franny Roberts (Skye McCole Bartusiak), a mysterious, attractive, but oddly troubled twelvish-year-old girl who seems to know what's going on, was by far a more interesting character in this film than the 'Boogeyman.' In fact, she was the most interesting character in the movie: weirdly sad, melancholy, yet somewhat a tomboy -- like a lost childhood friend we forgot about and kinda miss. Why wasn't she given a bigger role?

And the protagonist Tim (Barry Watson) did a pretty convincing act of being legitimately scared and haunted by a childhood memory. They (Tim and the little girl, Franny) should have been the ones, together, to thwart or vanquish the "boogeyman.' Not the guy and the ex-crush 'Kate.'

Remember, the boogeyman should be a menacing presence; a collector of souls, a tormentor who plays games with his victims before taking them away. Boogeymen may have vulnerabilities, but cannot really be destroyed. Please, no more computer-animated lightning explosions and MTV to represent the boogeyman.

Most of all, the Boogeyman needs to be a character, and not just be bad graphics a-flashing. The boogeyman needs a voice and creepy antics. He is an abductor of souls, the tormentor of children, he is somewhat invincible but can be driven away, and always takes his helpless victims to a fate worse than hell.

Remember this.

The one genuinely scary moment in director Stephen Kay's laughable excuse for a horror film occurs during the end credits, when the audience discovers that it actually took three professional screenwriters to pen this abominable nightmare. The last few years have been a golden age for modestly budgeted fright flicks. Last fall's The Grudge proved that if you market a film well and release it at just the right time, there's no end to the money you can make. I walked away from that film rather disappointed, but my confusion paled in comparison to the slack-jawed bewilderment that consumed me during Boogeyman.

The film's opening sequence features a man being ravaged by an unseen monster while his son observes helplessly. Fifteen years later we discover that Tim (Barry Watson) has never properly dealt with his father's sudden, grisly death. After learning that his mother has passed away, Tim returns home for her funeral. While in town he decides to face his fears by staying overnight in his unusually creepy boyhood home.

A series of muddled, incomplete ideas figure their way into the plot, but ultimately the story is nonsensical and just plain stupid. As with most recent horror films, Boogeyman provides no real terror, and instead attempts to startle the viewer by adding abrupt, loud noises to the soundtrack. The final straw is the title character itself, revealed briefly during the film's climax to be nothing more than a ridiculous, computer-animated mess. Avoid this moronic snoozefest like the plague.

Rating: D-

Tim (Barry Watson) is a young man with a great trauma: when his father left his family sixteen years ago, in his imagination his father was indeed taken by the Boogeyman. In Thanksgiving, while visiting the family of his girlfriend Jessica (Tory Mussett), his uncle Mike (Philip Gordon) calls him informing that his mother has just passed away. Tim travels to his hometown, meets his former crush Kate Houghton (Emily Deschanel) and advised by his shrink, decides to spend the night is in old home to face the monster of his imagination. Along the night, weird events happen with Tim and his closest friends.

"Boogeyman" was really a great deception for me. I saw the trailer and I expected a promising story, exploring the fear of darkness of children through the American legend of the monster in the closet. (Note: in Brazil, we do not have the legend of the "monster in the closet". The legend of the Boogeyman does exist (it is called "Bicho-Papão"), but its location is not specified and certainly is not necessarily in a closet). However, the story is very empty, without explanation, and with an awful and ridiculous conclusion. In the DVD, there is a not good alternate ending, but better and better than the released conclusion. The scary effects and the music score are the best this movie can offer. "Boogeyman" is watchable, not a masterpiece of the genre, but also not among "the worst horror movies" as commented by some users. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Pesadelo" ("The Nightmare")

Boogeyman is pretty much your standard horror movie which tries too hard to be different, but in reality, is about the same as every mediocre new horror movie that comes out nowadays.

Barry Watson stars as Tim Jensen, who since he was a young child, has been afraid of the Boogeyman that not only lives in his closet, but seems to be able to beam himself to any closet in the world and he uses that power to take those who Tim loves. We are treated to a decent scene at the beginning, where Tim is a child and witnesses his father being taken by the evil Boogeyman. The entire movie is basically Tim running from the dark, similar to Darkness Falls in a way.

Boogeyman does do some things right, however. For instance, it makes you wait until nearly the end to see the Boogeyman face to face, but this is very anti-climatic. You never get a clear look and when you do, it looks like a human painted black. Not much to it there. The feel of the movie was great, with the eery sound effects of the wind whistling and the house always creaking. In surround sound, this has quite a creepy effect, but when it is non-stop and in every location, it becomes tiresome. Other than a few scenes that are designed to make you jump, there is not much else to this movie. The ending leaves you less than satisfied and not even sure what just happened. I give 4.5 of 10 stars.