The Boogey Man (1980)

MAY 3, 2007

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The first time I put The Boogey Man in my queue, Blockbuster sent me the forsaken Screen Gems movie Boogeyman (with Barry Watson). I chastised them on their lack of proper horror movie knowledge, and the correct one was sent. As it turns out, it wasn’t much of an improvement.

It IS an improvement though. There is definitely enough here to warrant a viewing. Such as the somewhat creepy scene where a girl is seemingly attempting to get her 9 year old brother jealous by talking about a guy she’s gonna go out with (Hey-O!). A few minutes later, the kid yells “Boogey Man” before getting killed by a window being shut on his head, and thus killing his chances of nailing her. But she’s dead too, having stabbed herself in the neck with scissors (self throat cutting ties the film to yesterday’s, for the record). Then later, there is a double skewering that I couldn’t describe if I tried.

So, I will.

In a car, a knife goes thru the back of a guys head, coming out of his mouth. Then his girlfriend comes over to the car and sees him. The door then slams shut, propelling her forward and skewering HER head on the knife, so they remain in what looks like a making out pose. And their friends don’t notice anything strange about two people “making out” when they are not moving in the slightest.

And as the saying goes, “No film about broken pieces of a mirror that contains the ghost of a guy who wears a stocking on his head can be altogether bad.” Though it would have been nice if he was a bit more consistent with how he went about his business. Sometimes he apparently just possesses the victims into killing themselves, other times he uses telekinesis, and then he possesses people into attacking others. Hey, whatever works.

There’s also a scene where a girl hits on a lunking, retarded man. What the hell is it about horror movie chicks that make them so attracted to the mentally handicapped? All the more reason I wish I lived in a horror movie.

Wait, what?

Anyway, the film has possibly one of the most random scores in history, with the music either ripping off Halloween or just being plain inappropriate to the scene. In fact, most of the soundtrack is puzzling, with obviously dubbed in screams from the lead character providing several laughs, plus some baffling dialogue here and there.

Some versions of the DVD have Return Of The Boogeyman on the other side; this one has Devonsville Terror (another Lommel film) instead, so expect a review of that soon.

What say you?