Boogeyman (2005)

Boogeyman is just rubbish. Sometimes I can't be bothered stretching out a review to say what I can just blurt out in one quick sentence. But I've still got some unofficial word count to reach, and you may still want to hear a bit more about it, so I'll kick myself up the backside and think of other things to say about this insipid disappointment.

After a decent prologue, I'll give it that, we then get to move forward by many years. Barry Watson is Tim, the adult version of the child who went through such trauma in the previous scenes. Tim remains seriously affected by that incident from his youth. He doesn't like dark closet spaces, and remains convinced that the boogeyman is a real thing that might just catch him one day. Everyone else spends time trying to convince him of how wrong he is and, of course, it turns out that he's right.

There's a germ of a decent idea here in Boogeyman, a seed in the script (written by Eric Kripke, Juliet Snowden and Stiles White) that is, sadly, given minimal attention and care until it gives up and dies.

Director Stephen Kay can't seem to grasp the technical side of things. He forgets to make his horror film actually scary, and instead throws in some godawful CGI and scenes that show the lead character being all brooding and tense. By the time a few scenes try to impress in the final third it's just a case of too little too late.

Watson isn't a strong leading man either. He's not awful, I guess, but he fares much worse here than he did in the comedy framework of Sorority Boys. Perhaps that's because he's not given much screentime with anyone else, apart from the dodgy CGI. There IS a supporting cast of characters, but they're either not given enough screentime (Skye McCole Bartusiak), aren't that likable (Tory Mussett), or aren't given much to do at all (Emily Deschanel).

Heck, even Darkness Falls was better than this, and I really don't like Darkness Falls that much. The similarities between both movies are obvious, and the two of them make for a depressing checklist of how not to make a modern, mainstream horror movie. Laziness, carelessness and an over-reliance on CGI moments are things to avoid. Unfortunately, nobody is passing that advice along to the many directors out there. Or, if they are, then it's going unheeded.

Boogeyman at least spawned a couple of superior sequels, so there's that minor miracle to be thankful for. And you can watch those movies without having to see this one.

3/10

http://www.amazon.com/Triple-Feature-Boogeyman-Barry-Watson/dp/B003UN0752/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1411769313&sr=1-1&keywords=boogeyman

You know how you can make me feel better for watching this crap? If you share and share then every additional reader helps. Connect through Google or Blogger or any way you can, and rest easy in the knowledge that you've made little ol' me a very happy man.

And/or you could also buy my e-book, that has almost every review I've written over the past 5 years. It's very reasonably priced for the sheer amount of content.

The UK version can be bought here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395945647&sr=1-3&keywords=movie+guide

And American folks can buy it here - http://www.amazon.com/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395945752&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=TJs+ramshackle+mov

As much as I love the rest of the world, I can't keep up with all of the different links in different territories, but trust me when I say that it should be there on your local Amazon.