Post a Comment On: Horrorthon

Colla-BORE-ative review by Johnny Sweatpants and Crystal Math
[Image] (2005) **

Snooze-opsis:
A young boy by the name of Timmy lives in a picturesque country home with a supportive family and all the works of a typical childhood. He is even afraid of the dark, something many can relate to as a rite of passage growing up -- be a big boy/girl and go to sleep in pure darkness. However, little Timmy's father was taken by the Boogeyman, dragged kicking and screaming into the closet, and was never seen again. When he matures he accepts the more realistic scenario that he is a victim of a deadbeat dad who skipped town. He grows into a young man shunning enclosed spaces and doors of any sort, which is enough to fit in to the art community and get a hot self-centered girlfriend. Instead of staying with her and her rich parents for Thanksgiving, he returns to his childhood home to seek closure after his still-grieving mother has passed on. 
[Image] Eat your peas, son! It's a great setup in a cloudy rural town about a young man with unresolved abandonment issues, unique even, but all of the character build up and plot devices fall short before the grand finale. Instead of expanding on a great premise, they took the easy route and settled on an unremarkable haunted house exercise. With the assistance of Frannie, a young girl with the same problem in Timmy's hometown, he hopes to face the Boogeyman and destroy him once and for all.
When you finally get a glimpse of a monster and your first reaction is a laugh then you know there's a problem.
JSP's final words: There is a woman that I work with (I'll just call her "Fran" because that's her name) who showers me with horror movies every October. As soon as I return one she hands me off another one. I don't know where she gets them but I do appreciate the gesture. The movies range from unbearable to pretty damn decent and this one falls somewhere in the middle. JPX reviewed Boogeyman when it was fresh in 2005 and 50P reviewed when it was fresh to DVD in 2006. It's now 2013 and I see this movie as anything but fresh. To me it's a serviceable but far from groundbreaking footnote from the post-Ring craze. And from what I've gathered, it spawned some increasingly suck-filled sequels. 
Crystal Math's final words: I actually saw this when it first came out, with the perfect setup: huge bowls of popcorn and a roomful of sophomore college girls. The only problem was, nobody was scared. We only jumped because an inconspicuous animal came dangerously close to the lead or if the music startled us. And the guy who plays Timmy wasn't cute, either, so a lot of girls left early on. I stayed because I myself needed some damn closure on this movie that started out so great but left us all disappointed. When I saw the Boogeyman he reminded me of the villain from an old PC game I played called "Lighthouse: The Dark Being." All I did was chuckle at this fictitious character who was responsible for little Timmy's traumatic childhood.