The Boogeyman is going to get yah!

THE BOOGEYMAN (1980)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

For the first half-hour, "The Boogey Man" works up a bit of a sweat. The atmosphere gives one goosebumps (helped by the melodic and screeching musical score) and the placid setting and locations give one the illusion of a hypnotic supernatural horror flick. But after that half-hour, things go bump in the screenplay and lead us into the less-than-subversive world of slasher pictures.

Right from the start, one is reminded of John Carpenter's "Halloween." A picturesque suburban house at night shows two kids out on the porch. They are looking at their mother flirting with some anonymous boyfriend who wears a stocking on his head. The boyfriend is, however, a cruel and sadistic man who ties up the young male child, Willy, while his sister, Lacey, looks on. The mother seemingly approves the boyfriend's behavior but, well in another nod to "Halloween," Willy picks up a butcher knife after being freed by Lacey and stabs the mother's boyfriend to death.

Twenty years later, trauma infects Lacey (Suzanna Love), who is now married with kids and living on a farm. Her stoic brother, Willy (Nicholas Love, Suzanna's real-life brother), doesn't speak and also lives at the farm. Lacey is asked by her husband to confront her traumatic memories that are giving her bad nightmares. And the impotent Willy is having problems of his own, especially when he nearly strangles an ingenue who comes on to him.

The movie begins intriguingly enough and I had faith when I saw sublime John Carradine as a psychiatrist. I had more faith in the almost heavenly and softly lit scenes by cinematographer Jochen Breitenstein. But then the director Ulli Lommel ("The Devonsville Terror") opts for a couple of gratuitous slasher scenes that appear to have creeped in from another movie. Apparently, the killer boyfriend's soul has escaped when Lacey thinks she sees him in a mirror and smashes it. So we have the odd point-of-view shots of shards of mirror glass that shine brightly when new human prey is nearby and, in the soundtrack, we hear the killer's heavy breathing. And then we get a couple of possession scenes that scream laughter, not scares. My question is: why does this killer boyfriend attack young women and men engaged in sexual activity or in various states of undress? Would it not have been more effective if the soul escaped and moved from mirror to mirror to get to Lacey? And why is he interested in Lacey? Would he not be seeking revenge on Willy? And how come young Willy was never arrested for his crime or placed in an institution (Michael Myers was).

I will say that director Ulli Lommel was ambitious enough to attempt his own "Halloween" tropes in the service of a sensitive character study. For a while, it works and holds our interest. Unfortunately, the premise is squandered severely by a few stabbings of anonymous characters, some hollering and screaming fits, truncated transitions, and not a whole lot else. A noble yet schizophrenic attempt. Boo!