Pros: An enjoyable take on the boogeyman we fear as children. Nice Raimiesque shock editing.
Cons: Terribly incoherent storyline. Bad acting.
Spoilers follow.
Boogeyman takes the mythos of the monster in the closet and the monster under the bed or, as seen in the film, above the dropped ceiling panels and gives it a bit of a spin. Tim, our protagonist, is a little boy when the story begins. He's in bed on a scary night and the shadows are playing tricks on him. Or, are they? Was that a hooded man standing in his room? No, it's just his jacket slung over a chair back. But wait, did it move? He turns on the light and, sure enough, the jacket is now strangely on the floor. He makes enough noise in his fear that his dad comes in to check.
This is a nice beginning as director Kay nicely captures the feelings many of us had when we were little. Afraid of the dark. Able to read all sorts of looming danger into dim sights and faint sounds. And then, finally, a parent coming in to dispel all the notions.
Then the story breaks the rules. The boogeyman is real, pulls dad into the closet and takes him away! Oh, and they weren't really "faint" sounds. This is a very loud house. It creaks and groans like a ship. Kay is not subtle with the sounds for shock value either as sudden screeching and hissing will jolt you out of your seat. Yeah, it's a cheap way to deliver a shock but it worked.
Tim is traumatized and we cut to 15 years later. He's never gotten over the ordeal. He has no closets in his apartment and has even removed the doors from the cabinets. Somehow, though, he's managed to score both a really mint '67 Mustang and a hot, rich blonde (dyed) girlfriend. That's pretty impressive since he doesn't show many qualities. Tim really doesn't do much in the movie other than mumble and give looooooong silent looks of concern.
At his hot girlfriend's house he has a vision of his mother (Lucy Lawless) telling him to look at her. I didn't understand this, and it was never really explained. In fact, there were a lot of disconnected plot lines and loose ends in the movie. Noting multiple writers, I'm guessing this was not a concerted effort but instead went through a lot of patching and overhauls.
Anywho, he knows something is wrong and sure enough, even as he is explicitly stating that something is wrong, his Uncle Mike calls. His mom is dead. Well, Tim has gone along with what his psychiatrists have told him, that there is no boogeyman, that his dad "left" them for no reason, etc. But he darn well knows that the boogeyman is not only real but apparently powerful enough to kill Xena, the Warrior Princess. If the official cause of death for Xena was mentioned in the movie, I missed it. But her face was covered with unnatural scarring. So, I'm guessing the boogeyman did it.
Not only does he return for his mom's funeral but also decides to face his fears and stay in the house. Facing the boogeyman is a theme that the movie sticks in front of us several times. Tim turns out to be rather reluctant to do so, and actually ends up boarding all the closet doors shut at one point.
While at home, he reconnects with a childhood friend who seems to have pined for him, and perhaps him for her as well. Like so many plot points this was incredibly vague and seemed to be another subplot shoehorned in from one of the many revisions. His hot girlfriend also shows up unannounced, having driven to see him. Both of these ladies are due for a visit from the boogeyman.
He also finds a little girl hiding in the tool shed. She explains that she lives nearby and leaves her backpack. He discovers lots of missing posters of children. The children from the poster suddenly appear to him in another vision, all crowded around, looking perfectly healthy (unlike his mom) and calm. They did all grasp at him though so that must mean something dire.
There are some incomplete segments that follow involving his hot girlfriend being taken by the boogeyman from a motel room. His childhood friend almost getting the same. And the little girl turning out to have been abducted in 1985 when she takes him to a house where another man lived who also tried to face the boogeyman.
Oh, and the boogeyman hiding spots (closets, beds, dropped ceilings) are also portals.
We're not sure who lives and dies, since his hot girlfriend was clearly seen alive at some point and still struggling. This may have been a time warp, though, since he left a blood smear on the bathtub which was not there when he first noticed her missing, was there when he went back with the childhood friend, but just made when he struggled If that sounds confusing, so is the movie.
Another neat concept (to me) was revealed at the end where it seems the boogeyman is able to manifest himself through those same familiar items that take on a more sinister image in the dark. By destroying the items, Tim was able to destroy the boogeyman.
Not all plot points will be resolved but the movie is a fun ride. Relaxed and expecting a bad movie, I got an enjoyable thrill. Slow pacing and a muddled story made the experience uneven.
I wasn't familiar with Kay but noted during the movie how much he had picked up from Raimi, particularly his Evil Dead style close-ups and pans. Then, during the credits, it looked like the Xena crew with Raimi and Rapert, Chloe Smith, Joseph LoDuca, etc. so that made sense.
Cons: Terribly incoherent storyline. Bad acting.
Spoilers follow.
Boogeyman takes the mythos of the monster in the closet and the monster under the bed or, as seen in the film, above the dropped ceiling panels and gives it a bit of a spin. Tim, our protagonist, is a little boy when the story begins. He's in bed on a scary night and the shadows are playing tricks on him. Or, are they? Was that a hooded man standing in his room? No, it's just his jacket slung over a chair back. But wait, did it move? He turns on the light and, sure enough, the jacket is now strangely on the floor. He makes enough noise in his fear that his dad comes in to check.
This is a nice beginning as director Kay nicely captures the feelings many of us had when we were little. Afraid of the dark. Able to read all sorts of looming danger into dim sights and faint sounds. And then, finally, a parent coming in to dispel all the notions.
Then the story breaks the rules. The boogeyman is real, pulls dad into the closet and takes him away! Oh, and they weren't really "faint" sounds. This is a very loud house. It creaks and groans like a ship. Kay is not subtle with the sounds for shock value either as sudden screeching and hissing will jolt you out of your seat. Yeah, it's a cheap way to deliver a shock but it worked.
Tim is traumatized and we cut to 15 years later. He's never gotten over the ordeal. He has no closets in his apartment and has even removed the doors from the cabinets. Somehow, though, he's managed to score both a really mint '67 Mustang and a hot, rich blonde (dyed) girlfriend. That's pretty impressive since he doesn't show many qualities. Tim really doesn't do much in the movie other than mumble and give looooooong silent looks of concern.
At his hot girlfriend's house he has a vision of his mother (Lucy Lawless) telling him to look at her. I didn't understand this, and it was never really explained. In fact, there were a lot of disconnected plot lines and loose ends in the movie. Noting multiple writers, I'm guessing this was not a concerted effort but instead went through a lot of patching and overhauls.
Anywho, he knows something is wrong and sure enough, even as he is explicitly stating that something is wrong, his Uncle Mike calls. His mom is dead. Well, Tim has gone along with what his psychiatrists have told him, that there is no boogeyman, that his dad "left" them for no reason, etc. But he darn well knows that the boogeyman is not only real but apparently powerful enough to kill Xena, the Warrior Princess. If the official cause of death for Xena was mentioned in the movie, I missed it. But her face was covered with unnatural scarring. So, I'm guessing the boogeyman did it.
Not only does he return for his mom's funeral but also decides to face his fears and stay in the house. Facing the boogeyman is a theme that the movie sticks in front of us several times. Tim turns out to be rather reluctant to do so, and actually ends up boarding all the closet doors shut at one point.
While at home, he reconnects with a childhood friend who seems to have pined for him, and perhaps him for her as well. Like so many plot points this was incredibly vague and seemed to be another subplot shoehorned in from one of the many revisions. His hot girlfriend also shows up unannounced, having driven to see him. Both of these ladies are due for a visit from the boogeyman.
He also finds a little girl hiding in the tool shed. She explains that she lives nearby and leaves her backpack. He discovers lots of missing posters of children. The children from the poster suddenly appear to him in another vision, all crowded around, looking perfectly healthy (unlike his mom) and calm. They did all grasp at him though so that must mean something dire.
There are some incomplete segments that follow involving his hot girlfriend being taken by the boogeyman from a motel room. His childhood friend almost getting the same. And the little girl turning out to have been abducted in 1985 when she takes him to a house where another man lived who also tried to face the boogeyman.
Oh, and the boogeyman hiding spots (closets, beds, dropped ceilings) are also portals.
We're not sure who lives and dies, since his hot girlfriend was clearly seen alive at some point and still struggling. This may have been a time warp, though, since he left a blood smear on the bathtub which was not there when he first noticed her missing, was there when he went back with the childhood friend, but just made when he struggled If that sounds confusing, so is the movie.
Another neat concept (to me) was revealed at the end where it seems the boogeyman is able to manifest himself through those same familiar items that take on a more sinister image in the dark. By destroying the items, Tim was able to destroy the boogeyman.
Not all plot points will be resolved but the movie is a fun ride. Relaxed and expecting a bad movie, I got an enjoyable thrill. Slow pacing and a muddled story made the experience uneven.
I wasn't familiar with Kay but noted during the movie how much he had picked up from Raimi, particularly his Evil Dead style close-ups and pans. Then, during the credits, it looked like the Xena crew with Raimi and Rapert, Chloe Smith, Joseph LoDuca, etc. so that made sense.