Day 13: The Boogey Man

In the early 80's slasher films were still coming into form. Halloween was a massive success in the late 70's and other films wanted to utilize it's formula to cash in. As a result the slasher genre still took itself seriously for the most part. The Boogey Man was part of this era. This film stands out though as one of the few slasher films to incorporate very heavy supernatural elements.

The Boogey Man opens with a flashback of a brother and sister witnessing their mother perform sexual acts with her lover. The boy eventually takes a knife to their bedroom and murders his mother's lover. The scene makes no effort at all to show that it's almost a complete ripoff of Halloween's opening sequence. Flash forward 20 years later and we begin to learn of a mysterious force that may have possessed the boy to commit murder. This force is returning to haunt them and it's gonna pile some bodies while it's at it.

This film has a really good atmosphere going for it. While I don't typically enjoy overly supernatural horror films, The Boogey Man was able keep my attention with it's tone and murder sequences. The main theme, while sounding very similar to Carpenter's Halloween theme, is creepy and really helps set the mood. The acting may not be top notch, but it's not really bad either.

Before I watched this film, I had read several review that really hyped up some of the death scenes. I found myself being a bit disappointed in them. They aren't bad, actually most of them are pretty good. But I feel like I was expecting a bit more from it. Even still we have some pretty good gore and a couple of different kills that will surely grab most horror fans' attention.

Ulli Lommel is known for directing some pretty awful movies. I couldn't really tell by watching this film. Yes, the acting isn't top notch and there are a couple of questionable decisions made in the editing room. But that is standard fare for this genre and I found The Boogey Man to be a very solid supernatural slasher film. This was my first time actually watching one of my Big Box tapes so I was half expecting something god awful. I'm walking away from this one fairly surprised by just how much I actually enjoyed it.

Body Count: 7

Side Note: Halloween isn't the only victim here. Ammityville Horror and Exorcist have also been obviously plagiarized by this movie.