Boogeyman (2005)
Directed by Stephen Kay
Written by Eric Kripke, Juliet Snowden, Stiles White
Starring Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel, Lucy Lawless
Release Date February 4th, 2005
Published February 5th, 2005
There is a little known legend about a being called Zwarne Piet who it is said was a counterpart to Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus. Zwarne Piet was said to punish with a beating the children that Saint Nick deemed naughty. The legend of Zwarne Piet (there is no other english translation I am aware of) is one of the many entomological beginnings of the Boogeyman or man in the closet myths.
Every child was certainly made aware of the boogeyman whether it was from friends at a slumber party or siblings attempting to scare one another with a frightening bedtime story. The horror flick Boogeyman, starring Barry Watson, attempts to mine this childhood chestnut for some modern scares. Unfortunately, my description of Zwarne Piet has more scares than anything in this derivative PG-13 borefest.
A boy lies in bed, scared silly. Everything in his bedroom, in the dark, takes on a sinister shadow--his childhood toys, his robe laid across a chair, and of course his large, oaken, half-closed closet door. Poor Timmy, it seems, has just recently learned of the Boogeyman from his dad (Charles Mesure). This is dad's charming way of teaching Timmy a lesson of some kind, but when the legend turns real it's dad who become the boogeyman's victim, right before Timmy's innocent eight-year-old eyes.
Fifteen years later, Tim (Barry Watson) is a slightly neurotic magazine editor with a beautiful girlfriend, Jessica (Tory Mussett), and a deep-seated fear of closets. Years of therapy have finally convinced Tim that his dad simply disappeared on his own and that the boogeyman was merely his imagination. However, when Tim's mom dies and he heads home, the boogeyman is waiting for him.
Director Stephen T. Kay working from a not-so-original screenplay by Eric Kripke, renders Boogeyman in homage to any number of hackneyed horror flicks and specifically Kubrick's The Shining and Speilberg's Jaws. Not that Boogeyman is any where near as good as those two films; rather, Kay obviously watched both of them prior to making his movie because aspects of each populate Boogeyman.
The Shining can be seen in the many whip-pan camera moves and arty, over-shoulder camera perspectives Kay employs. Occasionally Kay does capture a striking image but so much of Boogeyman is a reproduction of horror cliches that the occasional artful camera shot is rather meaningless in the long run. There is certainly nothing in Boogeyman as eye catching as Kubrick's elevator of blood.
The homage to Jaws seems more of an act of necessity than of actual tribute. One of the awesome memories of Jaws is how Speilberg kept the shark offscreen for most of the picture. Kay similarly keeps his Boogeyman under wraps until the very end. This Boogeyman, sadly, is no Bruce the shark. ("Bruce" was the name Speilberg allegedly gave the mechanical monstrosity.) The Boogeyman is a mess of CGI shadows suggestive of a guy in blackface screaming.
Barry Watson was once a hot commodity in Hollywood. After making a splash as a hunk on the early seasons of 7th Heaven, Watson attempted to subvert the teen idol image thrust upon him. Unlike Johnny Depp before him, who shook a similar image by burying himself in complicated parts in underseen indie flicks, Watson cut his hunk hairstyle, grew some stubble and began making really bad movies.
First was the insipid college comedy Sorority Boys and now Boogeyman. I doubt Barry will have the teen idol stuff to overcome anymore. Another role like the one he plays in Boogeyman and I'm sure he will be begging the folks at 7th Heaven to take him back.
The PG-13 rating is the scourge of the modern horror film. Now that movies such as The Grudge have shown the box office viability of the PG-13 rating, more and more horror flicks are cutting the gore and nudity of the horror classics. Regrettably, these films not only lose the gore and nudity--they also forget the scares. Boogeyman is the latest in a growing genre of horror-less horror films that trade in established horror conventions for mood lighting and atmospherics to ever-diminishing success.
Why poor Emily Deschanel, now the star of the terrific procedural drama Bones on the Fox network, chose to co-star in this abysmal attempt at childhood scares is a mystery. Deschanel's earthy charm and natural wit are lost in this wretched, weak-kneed frightfest. Playing Watson's childhood friend and potential love interest, Deschanel seems to barely be in control of her gag reflex as she follows Watson from one tepid bloodless scare to the next.
Whether it is the neutered PG-13 scares or the fact that I simply loathe Barry Watson, I really hated Boogeyman. This is the latest in a series of tired, blood free, boob free horror flicks aimed at teenagers of a slightly less-than-discerning taste.
