Boogeyman
Starring: Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel
Directed by: Stephen T. Kay
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Rating: 0 (out of 5)
Wow, just a few weeks into 2005, and already the coveted title of "Worst Movie of the Year" could be wrapped up. It just goes to show how badly my life sucks…we're in the middle of Oscar-fever, and I'm at the theatre seeing this instead of something good like The Aviator or Sideways. I must have been Jack The Ripper in a previous life or something.
Speaking of which, I'll tell you what the differences between Jack The Ripper and the Boogeyman are. A) Saucy Jack was real, and B) was capable of scaring people over the age of nine. And this is coming from a high-strung, easily spooked guy. Ask Buceta about the time when he jumped out of a doorway at me and almost gave me a heart attack. Plus, I've got roughly 85,000 different phobias, including insects, spiders, snakes, and sobriety. I KNOW scared. Why can't I have a more masculine fear…like commitment?
See, now THIS is scary...
As the movie opens, we meet young Tim. It's late at night, and he's lying wide-awake, scared to death. The jacket across the room is moving, the action figure on his night table looks pretty creepy, and there's probably an invitation to the Neverland Ranch in the mailbox. Finally, his dad (Charles Mesure) comes in to convince him that everything is all right. He looks under the bed…no monsters, despite what Calvin and Hobbes always believed. He looks in the closet…no monsters. He then turns to his kid and starts to berate him for essentially being a little wiener when SOMETHING from the closet grabs him, assaults him violently, and pulls him in, never to be seen again. At this point, the kid disappoints me by NOT standing on his bed, pointing, and screaming, "Oh yeah? TAKE THAT! No monsters, huh? What do you think NOW, bitch?"
So now it's 15 years later, and Tim has grown up to be a fine, upstanding young mannequin, masterfully played by Barry Watson. Well, I'm assuming Tim is supposed to be a mannequin. You see, Watson plays him with all of the passion, emotion, and range of that Chinese takeout that's been in your fridge for a few days and is starting to turn on you. I've seen more emoting from a marionette…it's like this kid turned out to be the anti-Pinocchio…a flesh and blood boy who longed to become a block of cedar.
Okay, THIS is Barry Watson as confused...
He seems to be successful and all, but deep inside, he's scarred from the childhood trauma of seeing his father whipped around his bedroom like a crash-test dummy before disappearing. Of course, people keep telling him that didn't happen…they just all assume that dear old dad stepped out for the proverbial pack of cigarettes and never returned. My personal theory is that Daddy wasn't killed by the Boogeyman…he just read the rest of the script and said, "Fuck this…kid, you're on your own."
As a result, Tim spent many of his formative years in a Happy Home for traumatized kids, or something like that. Honestly, it's never explained all that well, much like everything else in this crapfest. Oh, and he's also still afraid of the dark, and lives in a house with no dark corners or closets. In fact, he can't even go near a closet without getting scared. Or in Watson's case, without approaching it and staring at it blankly.
Yet he's still managed to snag the obligatory annoying blonde girlfriend named Jessica (Tory Mussett). She invites him to her family's enormous house for Thanksgiving dinner, after which he has to sleep over…in a room…with a closet THAT WON'T CLOSE ALL THE WAY! Now THAT'S some high-concept horror for you. Get used to it. Closets are like Kryptonite to this loser.
...and THIS is Barry Watson in mourning...
Whatever…he gets a call from a relative later that night that says his mother (Lucy Lawless) had just died. Oh, and if you're a Lawless fan, don't get your hopes up. She has about 6 lines, mostly in flashback, and about 2 minutes of screen time, half of which is her lying lifeless in a coffin. Maybe that's where Tim gets his lifeless personality.
An aside: If you're wondering why our Xena is wasting her time in this turkey, it's because she's married to one of the Producers, Rob Tapert. Lucy, hon, I know the number of a good lawyer. I'm not SUGGESTING anything, I'm just sayin', is all.
After the funeral, Tim goes back to the Booby Hatch of his childhood. His old doctor tells him that if he just goes back to his old house, he'll get over these fears of his. He heads back to his creepy childhood home, which is being renovated or something. That's when all sorts of generic haunted house things start happening. After all, there are closets all over this place. CLOSETS I TELL YOU! CLOSETS! Ummm…BOO…and shit. Boogedy boogedy boogedy!! Umm…ok, I've got nothing here.
...and THIS is Barry Watson scared...
Twisted things start happening…his childhood friend Kate (Deschanel) tries to help out a bit. He also starts talking to some creepy kid named Franny (Skye McCole Bartusiak) who knows all about the Boogeyman herself. What's creepier than that is this 25-year-old man following a 10-year-old girl around at night, but let's just leave that alone for now.
Basically, Tim has to face his fears head on, which you know is going to lead to an encounter with the Boogeyman himself. And nobody he cares about is safe…NOBODY I tells ya! NOOOOBODY! BOO! Boogedy boogedy boogedy!!
It has been a long, LONG time since I've seen such an incomprehensible mess. Apparently, this Boogeyman likes to take kids, so why didn't he take Tim instead of his Dad…or both of them? Why is he going after all these other people in Tim's life now? Is this Boogeyman supposed to be tied to Tim's house? Is he trying to torture Tim by taking the people close to him? Well, he's had fifteen years…what's taken him so long? Why does he just go for all these other kids directly, but only chooses to mess with Tim's mind? Does he possess some sort of wacky teleportation device that only works in closets and under beds when it's dark?
...and THIS is Barry Watson...okay, I have NO IDEA what he's supposed to be here.
That's a lot of questions…none of which get answered. I've got a few more, though. Who the fuck cares? Who writes this shit? (Actually, his name is Eric Kripke, and I officially hate him and want him to contract a painful venereal disease for foisting this on me.) What drug were these studio executives on when they decided to release this steaming pile instead of burying it or sending it direct-to-video? And who in Hollywood do I have to blow (or buy blow for) to prevent shit like this from being made?
Even the WORST Friday The 13th movie is better than this. At least there's a coherent plot…unstoppable maniac in hockey mask kills everyone he sees. It's not a GOOD story, but it's still more than Boogeyman gives us to work with. Remember how much I hated Wrong Turn? This is worse. Even a horrible story is better than one that doesn't exist. I'll take an inane, retarded plot over a non-existent one any fucking day.
You can't replace the most basic of storytelling devices with a few "Boo!" moments. The so-called "climax" isn't even a climax…it's more of an exercise in seeing how many cuts they can jam into a scene. I'm surprised I didn't have a seizure from the fast cutting. Maybe they thought that people watching this piece of crap wouldn't realize that what was happening wasn't making any sense.
"Hey kid...can you teach me how to act? Please?".
This comes to us from Sam Raimi's "Ghost House". Since I actually enjoyed their last effort The Grudge, I had some hope. Instead, I honestly can't believe that he allowed this to be made. I mean he's Sam Fucking Raimi. If anyone should know better, it's him.
It's not laughably bad, or even offensively bad…it's just incompetently bad. The fact that people got paid for making this bowl-winder (and that it topped the box office) is scarier than any Boogeyman I could ever imagine.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and figure out what I did in my past life to make me have to sit through Boogeyman in this one. Whatever it was, I think my Karma has been evened out.
