Boo

After reading the comments by the editor on this film, I must wholeheartedly agree. Boo is not a perfect film, nor the best I have ever seen, but it is FAR better than any direct to video horror film I have seen. This film made me jump out of my skin several times, and it was very creepy. Yes, the plot is silly. Yes, it doesn't make a lot of sense in parts, but this is a fine offering of a horror film... and maybe I'm a toad, but I like how this film didn't feel the need to have pointless nudity and sex - it just seems to be a higher caliber DTV horror film. Everyone has their opinion, and I'm sure there are some who disagree, but I have seen a lot of horror films and I cannot see how anyone could think this to be one of the worst ever made. It is a lot of fun, so give it a chance. By the way, the editing on this film was outstanding, so cheers to the other reviewer.

Well, Sci Fi channel was "treating" viewers to an all day long horror fest. BOO was the only one I diddnt recognize so I decided to give it a shot. Man was that a mistake.

This movie was so amateur on so many levels where do I start?

First off this movie was not even remotely frightening. You would actually be amazed at exactly how many times this movie manages to not scare you. The special effects are third rate. Which actually brings me to another point, in a HORROR movie exactly how do you manage to get the color of blood wrong? I mean isn't that the very FIRST thing you get right? Give me a bottle of corn syrup and red food coloring and I promise I could make more realistic blood in 10 seconds.

There are exactly 2 kinds of blood in this film. Jello like (yes jello like, chunky, shiny, and see through), and syrupy and off color, almost orange...like buffalo wing sauce. Frightening indeed!

Next is the acting, or an odd lack thereof. I mean seriously this was cue card reading caliber. No chemistry, no delivery. There have been infomercials and video game voice recording with more authenticity. Not to mention how miscast some of the parts were (like the long haired meterosexual wimpy pretty boy cop? HUH???).

Finally the special effects. Lemme break em down. The most impressive was possibly the skinless dog. Mildly cool (yet done with mediocre puppetteering. I mean I believe its head was the only thing that moved.) Ghosts which were merely actors with 5 dollar white face paint (seriously), and finally the weak exploding corpses. You see when any baddie is shot, even with a small 22 handgun they merely explode in a very low budget 70's movie way (to apparently save some cash with their 100 dollar special effects budget. I mean even the girl who gets shot in the heads head wound is apparently just a red painted on dot. My god, I could buy a gunshot wound makeup pack for like 3 dollars.

Anyway nothing in this movie is compelling or even mildly frightening. I must admit I had to leave with 7 mins. left in the movie so maybe something spectacular and deeply frightening happened at that point but I doubt it. Terrible, and frankly boring movie. Use only for MST3K treatment.

I was happy to rent "Boo" after reading that it was from the same producer as "Dog Soldiers," which I found wonderfully relentless. While "Dog Soldiers" is on my list of films to buy, I soon found "Boo" to be tedious. It is the sort of movie I began to watch in bits for it was becoming too aggravating to sit through in one stretch. While I appreciate horror films made on a small budget (and therefore, it can be assumed, made out of a passion for the genre and not a mere eye on box office returns), recent films, such as "Boo," rely on SUDDEN LOUD NOISES to elicit their scare moments. (It's the new 'screeching cat leaping out' gimmick.) This film made me jump once. However, when a film uses a LOUD NOISE or sudden ghost/killer reveal a second time, the impact is usually lessened, and when this happens a THIRD time, and then again, the 'scares' become predictable for the audience now knows the rhythm of the film, that whenever there's a quiet moment, there will be a JOLT, or whenever a character is about to move out of frame, the ghost/killer will be standing there. And really, what suspense can be given to a film when there is an overuse of a creepy little girl suddenly, without actually moving, advancing toward another character, accompanied by A LOUD SOUND. The squeaking, slowly moving wheelchair was much more effective for then a sense of dread was built, a 'What's going to happen?' apprehension. JOLTS just become numbing, and then boring.

I can forgive bad acting but there are certain true reactions to which we can all relate and when a character does not REACT the way that we would, that is when the amateurish performance becomes distracting. If my girlfriend/boyfriend or best friend is murdered, my reaction is horror and anger; in this film, there is shock (and one character gets very upset and weepy) but then everyone just seems to gloss over this and resumes looking for a way to escape the hospital. The murder then becomes a mere plot device, another 'reanimated dead' complication for our remaining cast to soon deal with.

Great use of a particular costume however, and it's always wonderful to see Dee Wallace Stone on screen.

The friends Emmett (Happy Mahaney), Freddy (Josh Holt), Marie (Nicole Rayburn), Kevin (Jilon Ghai) and his reluctant girlfriend Jessie (Trish Coren) decide to spend the Halloween night in an abandoned hospital. Meanwhile, the younger Allan (Michael Samluk ) meets the old friend of his father Arlo Ray Baines (Dig Wayne) and asks him to help to find his vanished sister Meg (Rachel Melvin) in the same spot. The two groups meet each other in the mental institution section on the haunted third floor and they find that they are trapped in the place. Jessie has visions from the past and discovers that the ghost of Jacob (M. Steven Felty), a former patient that raped a little girl and burned the hospital, is trying to escape possessing their bodies that melt down with his evil spirit.

"Boo" is a messy ghost story, with a confused screenplay and poor development of characters, especially Jessie. This lead character and her relationship with her mad mother are the key point of the story, but their stories are awfully disclosed. Further, the character Kevin acts like an annoying moron. The group using an old elevator that works in an abandoned building is ridiculous. However, I startled in some moments with the eerie atmosphere. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Hospital Maldito" ("Damned Hospital")

A group of teens decide to go party in an abandoned hospital on Halloween. Unfortunately for them, the place is haunted by some very nasty ghosts who don't want them to leave. "Boo" is a decent genre flick, but ultimately it disappoints. The performances are mediocre at best, the script is pedestrian and first-time scribe/director Anthony C. Ferrante (a former Fangoria writer) relies too heavily on predictable pop scares throughout most of the film (though to his credit the flashback sequences were very well-shot). There's nice gore content and the special effects are often very good (loved the skinned dog thing), unfortunately these are too sparse and insubstantial to give the film the push it needed. "Boo" is by no means a bad movie, it's simply too mediocre to deliver on it's initial promise. Could have been much, much worse though… 5.5/10.