The Boogens

A cute romp through the early eighties horror genre. This movie was one of the favorite films of Michael on the Bob Newhart show. Anyway, loads of fun for the fan of the effervescent rebecca balding, (see also Silent Scream), with a fairly scary looking monster, too.

Mark (Fred McCarren) and Roger (Jeff Harlan) are a couple of young guys working for a company reopening a closed mine. Roger is excited that his girlfriend Jessica (Anne-Marie Martin) is coming to spend the winter with him and she brings along Trish (Rebecca Balding). What they don't know is that their dynamiting in the old mine has allowed some creepy monsters to escape. I saw this when it first belatedly hit video in the mid-90s and wasn't too impressed. My feelings are pretty much the same 15 years later. The film has some great locations, good cast and cool monsters. Unfortunately, it unfolds in a manner than never takes advantage of any of them. One would think most of the scary events would take place in the mine, but they all center in the house the kids are staying at miles away (tunnels exist under the land). Balding, who has just escaped housebound horror the year before with SILENT SCREAM (1980), is good in the lead but has very little to do. Hell, the cliché library research bit doesn't even show her uncovering anything big. Even the "scary old townie" character doesn't get much to do. THE BOOGENS is still MIA on DVD, but Turner Classic Movies recently ran a great letterboxed print that opens with the old Paramount logo.

My Father,Jeffery Sandler, was Supervising Sound Editor on this film when I was just a boy of 11 years. He took me to work quite often, and during post production on The Boogens, he got stumped as to how the monster should sound. Well he comes to me and asks if I have any ideas? And I played around with sounds that scared me and I came with the following:

Breathing: Vampire Breathing

Heartbeat: Heartbeat sound sped up and slowed down repeatedly

Monster Roar: Dog&Cat Fight,slowed down,played backward

That roar was the most horrific thing you ever heard. We set up the sound rig in a hallway intersection in the building(Glenn Glenn Sound)and put speakers at the end of each hall. We turned out the lights so we had dark down all of the hallways(like being in a mine)and played the sound from random directions....even though we know we were alone in the building,Me,My Dad,and a co-worker of his,none of us wanted to walk down into the dark to turn on the light alone. We were all scared out of our minds. Well, my Dad used the sound fx I came up with and gave me $50 for my work. And that was my start in the movie business at age 11.

An old mining town in the American West harbors a deadly, 70-year secret, one that is about to be awakened when its silver mine is re-opened.

'The Boogens' is a largely-forgotten classic B-grade horror film with a title that suggests monsters emerging from people's noses and inflicting green, slimy terror. Thankfully, that idea is light years wide of the mark, the film instead occupying the 'monsters beneath the ground' category, predating the silliness of the more well-known 'Tremors' franchise by 9 years. In fact, though its modus operandi is principally just to provide shivers for 95 minutes, it's actually quite well-executed and has more to offer than at first might seem apparent. The script treats its audience with some intelligence by avoiding gratuitous blood-splattering early on, instead allowing the story and the menace to develop at a meaningful pace. This in turn allows us time to get to know the principal characters, who are fairly well-drawn and likable, thanks to the naturalistic performances of Fred McCarren, Rebecca Balding, Anne-Marie Martin and Jeff Harlan - as opposed to the performance of Jon Lormer, who gives his best 'mad loon' acting as the crazed local who knows what's happening but isn't very forthcoming with the details. Of course, the cynic might argue that keeping the monsters of the piece out of the limelight for as long as possible is more to do with the limitations of the practical effects budget, and it's true that once they do appear, they don't stand up to 21st Century scrutiny. However director James L. Conway, who would go on to work on a number of high-profile shows (Star Trek fans should be familiar with his efforts), knows how to make the best of limited resources and accentuating the production's strengths, for example, drawing rising tension from good lighting and suggestions of menace just beyond vision with well-placed camera angles and good cutting - which is probably just another way of saying that you see the characters more than the monsters, but this leads to a good build up of suspense, and that when something nasty happens to one of the leads, it makes an impact. These are the hallmarks of a decent film and they elevate 'The Boogens' as far as I'm concerned to greater heights - doubtless also the reason why Stephen King gave it the thumbs up upon its release.

The film is also helped by some very good choices for location backdrops, from the sleepy mountain town featured (Park City, Utah, according to the end credits) to the presumably authentic mine entrance. The sense of isolation is helped by the rolling hills and coating of snow to make it clear that civilisation, and therefore help when the Boogens hit the fan, is far distant. The musical score provided by Bob Summers is fairly unmemorable, but it fits the bill, boosting tension where appropriate. Finally, special note has to be made of the dog who played Tiger the poodle, the mischievous pet of one of the leads. Between the obvious talents this dog had to respond on cue to verbal and visual stimulus and the committed efforts off-screen to get him to do so, Tiger is very much a character in his own right, practically stealing the show - and not in a cheesy Disney way, either.

'The Boogens' was for me a pleasant surprise, very much surpassing my expectations, given that it could so easily have been an unintelligent exploitation gorefest. Genre fans should definitely check it out, possibly fogging up their lenses a little when the Boogens hit centre-stage.

Here's an odd one: plot development is decidedly lackadaisical, such that the film is almost half over before it starts to feel like it's slowly begun to pick up. In the interval, we get expository dialogue and scene writing that's at most indirectly tied to the predominant narrative, but somehow a lot of it is weirdly endearing... or even funny? (Not all, mind you - there's some tired, passing ableism, and some crude lines that just don't land.) Of course, for a monster movie, even one in which visualization thereof is pointedly reserved for much later in the runtime, it doesn't necessarily speak well to the picture that the horror element rears its head only a few times and very briefly for the first two-thirds of the length. To that point, I assume it was concern for a low budget that so heavily restricted the realization of any abnormal goings-on. With this said, 'The boogens' does manage to be enjoyable, largely on account of charming characters and cast members - though by the same token, this isn't why we're watching it.

In fact given such piecemeal, unbothered development, and the way the horror element is so emphatically shoved into a small corner, to no small extent this comes across as a made-for-TV movie. It distinctly feels like the type of flick that might have aired on ABC with minimal spookiness lest the delicate sensibilities of the Average American Family be overwhelmed. But this is clearly not the case as we note "R"-rated content, so what happened here? All the elements are present for a low-grade genre flick of at least some entertainment, and so it is in its way, yet David O'Malley and Jim Kouf's screenplay minimizes the blood and violence seemingly as much as it can.

For what it's worth, while hardly the pinnacle of the genre, I think everything looks and sounds good. The filming locations are lovely, and the production design and art direction strike me as solid. Any effects on hand look good, including blood; if slightly kitschy, Paul Hipp's cinematography and the creature design are both just fine. Again, I quite like the cast; Rebecca Balding, Fred McCarren, and Anne-Marie Martin, among others, actually do a really great job. All the contributions of those behind the scenes are splendid. And while the horror aspect is broadly pushed back to the very last segment of the film, the last 10-20 minutes are, I'm pleased to say, fairly exciting and well done. Even if we can easily predict who is going to survive by the end of the movie, 'The boogens' is ultimately a good bit of fun.

It's not unfair to say, however, that this probably won't find especial favor with the average viewer. I think I tend to be rather generous and open-minded when it comes to the movies I watch, and I exacted unexpected enjoyment from the substantial portion that was just interactions between the chief characters, well before the climax. I don't think for one moment this will hold true for most folks. All told I think this manages to be slightly better than average in my book, though I'd hardly begrudge anyone who thought lesser of it. 'The boogens' is not an essential watch by any means, but as far as little-known monster flicks of yesteryear go, this isn't half bad.