Boogeyman Review
by Johnny Betts (johnny_betts AT hotmail DOT com)February 14th, 2005
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Boogeyman
http://www.themoviemark.com/moviereviews/boogeyman.asp
In what could be a scene stolen straight out of Darkness Falls, Boogeyman opens in a young boy's bedroom late at night. Various objects and shadows appear to materialize, constantly preventing the boy from falling asleep. To make a long story short, his father comes in to relieve his fears, gets snapped up by the "Boogeyman," and 15 years later Barry Watson is a guy who is scared of closets and likes to wear gay snowflake sweaters.
When Watson is forced to return home due to a family emergency, he decides to spend the night at his old home, now abandoned, in an attempt to conquer his fears. What proceeds is a movie that's light on story but heavy on fog, heavy on slow walking, and heavy on a creaking house. Seriously, after a while I started to think I was watching the movie in the hull of a ship.
I'll give the movie credit; it does a decent job of creating a creepy atmosphere. Unfortunately, story is sacrificed for the sake of ye olde jump scene, of which there are many. I would also complain about the lack of dialogue, but with actors like these, that's actually a GOOD thing. So I'll focus my complaints on the weak story. There's just no rhythm or flow to the plot. I dare you to try to figure out the exact timeline of the movie. Perhaps this is by design. We witness one weird vision/occurrence after another, and pretty soon we just don't know what's going on. Is it all in Watson's head? Is he smoking something?
Schizophrenic perhaps? Is he just a psycho? Is someone trying to frame him? Or is there an actual Boogeyman?
About halfway through the movie, a strange little girl asks Watson the same question. His response? "There's no such thing as the Boogeyman." Imagine my shock when James Brown appeared out of nowhere, said, "I beg to differ," and then danced a little jig. I'm sorry, but that took me right out of the film...
*ahem* Anyway, like I was saying, I think the writers intentionally made the timeline as confusing as possible to try to keep us from guessing what's actually going on. That's fine, but when the end credits finally roll, we should be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together and get a picture of what exactly happened. Unfortunately, the only picture I saw was of a group of writers standing around not really knowing how to wrap things up in a halfway sensical manner.
Chances are, after the extremely lame ending, you'll be left with a lot of questions. What happened to Watson's girlfriend? When exactly did he develop that double chin? If Watson was really so scared of closets, and weird things seemed to happen in them, then why didn't he get a camera crew to try to document it? Should anybody be offended by the Boogeyman finally *drum roll* coming out the closet? Bwahahaha!
Rather than weave a genuinely creepy tale, Boogeyman seems more intent on cashing in on another figment of our childhood imagination through the use of atmosphere and jump scenes. Admittedly, that approach was effective enough to keep me awake for about an hour and a half, but it didn't grab anything other than my visual and aural attention, and that's certainly not enough to demand you spend the big bucks to see it at the theater.
THE GIST
If you scare easily, and you're desperately in the mood for a movie, any movie, with a dark atmosphere and a handful of jump scenes and you don't mind a total lack of story, then Boogeyman may provide you with moderate entertainment. Otherwise, save it for a rental or catch it in a few months when it's airing on TNT or USA.
Rating: 2.5 (out of 5)
Johnny Betts
The Movie Mark
http://www.themoviemark.com
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