Knowing that this had a lengthy production history, and that there were originally rumblings concerning a straight to video release for the first Ghost House Pictures film, I was sceptical about why all of a sudden after the $110,000,000 plus gross of ‘The Grudge’ they had decided to release this theatrically.
Wonder no more as the revised UK art has ‘From the producers of The Grudge’ in bold red writing stamped on it square and centre, and some heavy advance promotion and even a special website showcasing the first five (and arguably best) minutes appeared online in the run up to the film’s release.
The film is one of the most disappointing and boringly executed films I have had to sit through in ages. There I said it…Boogeyman sucked!!
The film starts out well if not a little bit cliched, and even late in the day, after the whole I’m afraid of the dark syndrome played out over far better movies two years ago, with a young boy terrorised by the titular pest witnessing his father’s death.
The film flashes forward 15 years and the first unbelieveable plot point is that Barry Watson is supposed to be 23 come on..can you say pushing 30!!
The film then drags on for the first 20 odd minutes as he stops and gazes at every possible piece of background action and empty cupboard available, before freaking out at a dinner party and heading home to ‘that house’ in order to ‘face him’.
We then do the obligatory catch up with the childhood sweetheart and members of the broken family thing, before things go bump in the early evening and Tim flees the house just in time to meet his main squeeze and head for a motel.
Things start to go a little bit freaky until he finally realises that his fear is keeping The Boogeyman going and he’ll never be free unless he deals with the bastard once and for all, which leads into the most jumbled and poorly explained conclusion in the history of horror.
I’m afraid Boogeyman’s only merits lie in it’s sound design and good use of light and dark, as it is essentially a cock tease of a horror movie which refuses to show anything, even nudity, before showing way too much in the finale which turned out to be less scary than an average episode of ‘Fungus the Bogeyman’.
Credit where credit is due, it was an interesting premise and I even jumped once (damn you Dolby Digital Surround Sound) but the cast are wasted, especially an unrecognisable Lucy Lawless and Skye McCole Bartusiak, and the ending is shite.
OVERALL SUMMARY
I didn’t expect a repeat of ‘The Grudge’ and I’m glad it was different, but do Sam and Bob actually think this is good? Maybe it will grow on me and maybe it won’t but it made millions, and I’m confident that we will see much better stuff from the Ghost House Pictures guys in years to come.
