Release Date: February 4, 2005
Starring: Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel, Tory Mussett
Directed by: Stephen T. Kay
Written by: Eric Kripke, Juliet Snowden, Stiles White
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (intense sequences of horror and terror/violence, some partial nudity)
Because of some of its creepier sequences, Boogeyman is not a movie for kids who are deathly afraid of monsters in their closets. At the same time, though, it’s not exactly a movie for adults who want a scary flick that amounts to more than the cinematic equivalent of a haunted house ride at the county fair. Thanks to its giant narrative missteps, Boogeyman is, at its heart, a poorly made horror movie. It will make you tense, and it will even get a few jumps out of you, but not a single scare in it is rightfully earned or supported by clever storytelling.
Before the title appears, we’re introduced to Tim, the main character, as a young boy in his bedroom late at night. It’s a familiar scene, intentionally filled with those well-worn tropes of nocturnal, childhood fear: closet doors creaking in the shadows, window drapes billowing in the wind, lightning flashing outside, and strange dark shapes moving around the room. Understandably, Tim is terrified, and soon enough we realize it isn’t just his imagination playing tricks on him. Tim’s dad comes in to check on him, and something comes out of the darkness to pull him into Tim’s closet.
This is the realization of the “bogeyman” myth (phonetically misspelled for the benefit of mass audiences), the one about a monster hiding in your bedroom closet or under your bed. The opening scene is sort of a treat to watch, because it’s a genuinely spooky sequence that gives life to these childhood fears. Unfortunately, however, the movie never returns to this type of innate fun, and instead spends the rest of its time trying to explain the truth behind the Boogeyman and the psychological damage it plays on the grown-up version of Tim. It’s all poorly conceived and really only designed to get a dozen or so cheap scares out of the audience.
The older Tim is played by Barry Watson, and he appears lost in the movie, probably wondering the same things we are about why his character acts the way he does. He travels back to his hometown after his mother’s death, and for no good reason (except for the sake of the screenplay, of course) he decides he’s going to confront his fears of his old house, where his father was killed. This is followed by a countless number of sequences that has Tim slowly walking through dark and quiet rooms, while the audience waits anxiously for the inevitable shock moment. To the movie’s credit, those moments succeed at scaring you, but not enough to make it a lasting fear, which genuinely scary thrillers like The Ring do so well.
Because Boogeyman, which was directed by Stephen T. Kay and written by Eric Kripke, Juliet Snowden, and Stiles White, makes little narrative sense, any attempt to scare us is empty and contrived. Nothing is said about why Tim is haunted by images of his dead mother, or why the Boogeyman only terrorizes this small town (and for that matter, why he only seems to do so when Tim is around). There’s hardly a shred of character development all around, so we don’t really care what’s going on with Tim and his friends (he has two forgettable female companions, one played by Tory Mussett, the other by Emily Deschanel).
Furthermore, there are hints that maybe everything Tim experiences is entirely in his head. For example, everyone else talks about his father’s untimely disappearance as though the father simply “walked out” on the family, so it’s possible that Tim created the Boogeyman himself to cope with his father’s abandonment. Although it would have been terribly unoriginal, it’s actually sort of disappointing that particular plot twist — that it’s all in Tim’s head — is ultimately not used, because the way things culminate toward the end is so disjointed and incoherent that it would have made the writing feel more inspired had Tim actually been suffering from a psychological disorder. Because really, anything is better than just him running around trying to keep closet doors closed, avoiding a forgettable monster we know and care little about.
Had the film recognized its own shortcomings and just ran with its innate spookiness, like the average but superior Jeepers Creepers, Boogeyman may have been more enjoyable. As it is, however, it rates only the occasional Halloween video rental, and nothing more.
-- Andy Zientek (zfilm@earthlink.net)