‘You thought it was just a story.’
Boogeyman is a 2005 American-New Zealand horror film about a young man still trying to deal with his childhood terrors.
Directed by Stephen Kay (The Hunt for the BTK Killer; Get Carter) from a screenplay co-written by Eric Kripke (The House with a Clock in Its Walls; Supernatural TV series), Juliet Snowden and Stiles White, based on a story by Kripke. Produced by Eric Kripke, Doug Leffler, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert.
The movie stars Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel (Bones TV series), Skye McCole Bartusiak, Tory Mussett and Andrew Glover.
Plot:
Every culture has one – The horrible monster fueling young children’s nightmares. But for Tim, the Boogeyman still lives in his memories as a creature that devoured his father fifteen years earlier. Is the Boogeyman real? Or did Tim make him up to explain why his father abandoned his family?
The answer lies hidden behind every dark corner and half-opened closet of his childhood home – A place he must return to and face the chilling unanswered question… Does the Boogeyman really exist?
Reviews:
” ….a modern retelling of the age-old kids’ fable that works for a few of its nicely crafted scares before diving headfirst into a ridiculous finale that’s downright embarrassing. Before its free fall into imbecilic stupidity, the movie is actually not that bad. Barry Watson is an altogether acceptable male lead…” AllMovie
” …while Kay’s film generally has the look and feel of an old dark house horrorthon, there’s simply not much else to it beyond a brief and unrealized subplot about all those missing kids emblazoned on the back of your morning milk being the victims of Boogey-napping. Even the should-have-been-triumphant revelation of the Boogeyman arrives as a CGI letdown of epic proportions.” Austin Chronicle
“Director Stephen T. Kay knows how to get under your skin, and Watson nails the internal-turmoil bit, but it’s still just a one-trick pony that comes up lame long before the insipid climax.” Boston Phoenix
” …Stephen Kay (Last Time I Committed Suicide) pays more attention to visual imagination than the requisite blood and gore theatrics. But it is a thinly-veiled, insipid horror film with an insipid protagonist who doesn’t much care about anyone except his inner fears. It is the underlying rule in any horror film – you should care about the main protagonist so that the threat has urgency.” Jerry Saravia on Cinema
” …this movie sucks. I get a lot of what they were going for, but the film has a ridiculously lopsided budget. We get a little bit of stuff right at the beginning and the rest is in the last twenty minutes of the film! Who writes a movie like that?!? It’s like ‘we have to hook them, bore them to tears and them overcompensate at the end.'” Mondo Bizarro
“Boogeyman is a film that has been construed almost entirely as a series of jumps, red herrings and hyped suspense scenes and with nothing else in the way of rhyme, reason or connecting rationale. Three-quarters of the film consists of hero Barry Watson creeping around the old family mansion and being scared by things.” Moria
“The filmmakers are smart enough to keep the monster out of sight for a long time and then to show only glimpses, but a similar tactic of providing only glimpses of plot and character is disastrous. Moviegoers never learn who or what the boogeyman is, what his particular beef with Tim is, what his powers are and what has stirred up his wrath after all these years…” The New York Times
“The film was ok, not fantastic, though at times does demonstrate a messed up kind of reality. The Boogeyman itself is all CGI it appears and looks really generic and boring. There is no violence or gore, all the people who are taken by the Boogeyman are just never seen again.” The Rotting Zombie
“Probably the biggest problem with Boogeyman is the fact that the lead hero comes across as a big scaredy-cat and that there’s never really any sense of menace. Plus for a movie called Boogeyman there certainly isn’t much screen time for the title villain and when he does show up he’s merely a weak, CGI enhanced actor with his face painted black and wearing a tattered robe.” The Video Graveyard
Cast and characters:
Barry Watson … Tim Jensen
Emily Deschanel … Kate Houghton
Skye McCole Bartusiak … Franny
Tory Mussett … Jessica
Andrew Glover … Boogeyman
Lucy Lawless … Tim’s Mother
Charles Mesure … Tim’s Father
Philip Gordon … Uncle Mike
Aaron Murphy … Young Tim
Jennifer Rucker … Pam
Scott Wills … Co-Worker
Michael Saccente … Jessica’s Dad
Louise Wallace … Jessica’s Mom
Brenda Simmons … Jessica’s Grandma
Josie Tweed … Jessica’s Sister
Ian Campbell … Franny’s Father
Robyn Malcolm … Doctor Matheson
Olivia Tennet … Terrified Girl
Eddie Campbell … Priest (as Edward Campbell)
Andrew Eggleton … Jessica’s Brother-in-Law (as Andrew Eggelton)
Technical details:
89 minutes
Aspect ratio: 1.85: 1
Audio: DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS
Budget:
$20 million (estimated)
Box office:
Worldwide theatrical gross: $67,192,859
Trailer:
Clip:
Movie timeline:
