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Boogeyman
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Boogeyman [UMD for PSP]
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Review by MvMMDI
Added: June 01, 2005
As a child, Tim Jensen (Barry Watson) witnessed his father (Charles Mesure) being pulled into the closet by the boogeyman. Father was never seen or heard from again, and as a result, Tim's mother (Lucy Lawless) winds up in the loony bin while Tim goes to live with his Uncle Mike (Philip Gordon). Fast-forward fifteen years. Tim is now the associate editor of a well-known magazine, and he's also getting pretty serious with his girlfriend Jessica (Tory Mussett); so serious, in fact, that he's spending Thanksgiving weekend with her and her parents. Things couldn't be much better for our hero, until he has a disturbing dream about his mother. Shortly after waking up, he receives a phone call from Uncle Mike, who goes on to tell him that his mother has died. This pushes the traumatic events of his childhood back into his life, so he decides that spending a night in his old house would do him some good. He spends the night there, wakes up in the morning, and leaves. Roll credits... oh, wait. The boogeyman is real, it has kidnapped his girlfriend, and Timmy must save the day by defeating the monster. Didn't see that coming, did you?
Stop me if you've heard this scenario before. Word leaks out from Hollywood about a new movie that is in production, and the plot synopsis sounds great. You add this movie to your mental "must-see" list, and when the slick trailer comes out a few months later, it does nothing to change your mind about giving it a view. Then, you finally see the movie... and it's a steaming pile of feces with no redeemable qualities outside of the select few scenes that you've already seen in the trailers. Yes, that is the case with Boogeyman.
The problem with this film isn't so much the basic storyline, nor is it the pacing of the film or even the acting. The problem is, well, pretty much everything else. The storyline starts out nicely enough, and if you've seen the trailers, then you know what to expect. It looks quite sharp, and you're expecting one hell of a horror-thriller. Then, the twists start to unravel that leave you with that "what the fuck am I watching" feeling. Keep in mind here, that this is not the "what the fuck" feeling one would get from watching a bizarre movie or witnessing a shocking twist; this is more along the lines of the "what the fuck were they smoking when they came up with this crap" sort of thing. <Spoilers>Case in point - Tim manages to defeat the boogeyman by destroying the boogeyman action figure that he conveniently had in his dresser. Prior to this, Timmy chases the boogeyman by teleporting from location to location using some sort of teleportation pods conveniently located inside of closets and underneath beds. Once again... what the fuck?</Spoilers> If that's not bad enough, then how about that character consistency? Tim's childhood friend Kate (Emily Deschanel) turns up as his sidekick, and it's almost as though the character had multiple-personality disorder. After seeing some disturbing imagery in a hotel room, Kate is sympathetic towards Tim during the ride back to her house and wants to both understand and help. You almost expect the duo to start making out, she's being so sweet. Tim drops her off, sits in the car for a moment, and then starts knocking on her door. She bursts out, screaming that he needs professional help and that she's going to call the cops if he doesn't get off her porch right this instant. Now, to be fair, either of these emotions would have fit both the character and the scene. She could have believed him and truly wanted to help (hence the sympathy) or thought that he was lying to her about what they saw (hence the anger). I would have been fine with either reaction, but using them both and switching from one to the other in mere seconds left me wondering if I'd missed a scene or something. After seeing the elapsed time on my DVD player, I can confirm that that was not the case.
The above makes for a pretty awful movie, but it still could have been at least mediocre. The final nail in this coffin comes as a result of the over-abundance of cheap Hollywood scare tactics and some of the worst CGI effects that I have ever witnessed. For starters, there's no type of musical score here... none, that is, unless something is about to happen. When you hear the music start up, you know that you're about to see something jump out from somewhere, whether it be a cheap-scare ("oh, it was just my dad / the wind / a kid") or a brief glimpse of the boogeyman himself. Well, a brief glimpse is expected... you don't want to fully reveal the main villain until the end of the movie, right? Again, understandable... but using that horrid "five-hundred images in one-tenth of a second" editing technique was not the way to go. It didn't work out the first time that we witness it in this film, and it certainly didn't do much the hundredth time that it was used. Basically, the movie has a grand total of two nicely developed scenes - the opening scene and the little girl in the hospital. Everything else is chock-full of cheap scares, horrendous storyline turns, and pathetic CGI sequences.
Avoid. It's that simple. 2/10.
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![Boogeyman [UMD for PSP]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XNP16TP6L._SL75_.jpg "Boogeyman [UMD for PSP]")
