Boogeyman

Review by Clint Morris

If you're not easily awakened by the minutest bump in the night, the lifeless Boogeyman is unlikely to perturb your sleep.

In fact, this one's so somnolent; GP's will probably start prescribing it to insomniacs soon.

Made a couple of years back in New Zealand - it's cheap, the crew can live on A-grade roast lamb for the duration of the production, and when the film's largely set in a house, it doesn't matter anyway - with former teen heartthrob Barry Watson ("7th Heaven") in the lead, Boogeyman is the kind of film that'll have folks appreciating the invention of the timepiece.

If not for that, we wouldn't be able to tell how much longer we'd have to endure this tiring disarray. Having said that, thankfully, the movie does have something going for it - it is short.

A leisurely, murky rip-off of half-a-dozen other genre efforts that preceded it, Boogeyman relies solely on a sequence of thunderous, trying, wham-bam sounds to tickle its audience, hoping they won't spot the film with the shoddy script. Filmmakers should never assume too much.

The film's wafer-sized storyline goes something like this: Tim (Watson) once saw his father get swallowed alive by a demon that lurked in his closet. All these years later he's decided to face his fear and return to the house where it all went down. The End.

The only reason Boogeyman is getting a theatrical release is because über-director Sam Raimi's (Spider-Man) production company, Ghost House Pictures, adopted it. And after the success of the company's latest genre effort, The Grudge (of which this seems intriguingly alike), studios are keen to milk what they can of the chic horror genre before it's nothing more than a worn-out and tired teen slasher stencil again.

If this one is any indication, the genre's dream run might be about to complete its finishing leg...

0.5 out of 5

Boogeyman
Australian release: Thursday 12th of May, 2005
Cast: Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel, Skye McCole Bartusiak, Tory Mussett, Lucy Lawless.
Director: Stephen T. Kay.
Website: Click here.

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