THE BOOGEY MAN

Directed by Ulli Lommel. United States. 1980.

If you ever want to know just how fucking good John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN is, watch THE BOOGEY MAN. Carpenter’s standard-bearer is a simple, no-fuss classic, written with the bare minimum of narrative complications and deus ex machina conveniences. The leads have distinct personalities, and the antagonist is just a dude in a mask. It truly boggles the mind how all the rip-offs that came after failed so horribly to understand this. It’s like taking a test with a single question, a clear view of the smartest kid’s answer, and still fucking it up. Such a simple formula to follow and yet…

Adolescent siblings Lacey and Willie are caught spying on their ridiculously attractive mother making out with her asshole boyfriend. As punishment, Lacey is sent to her room while poor Willie is tied to his bed. Lacey frees her brother by cutting his restraints with a large kitchen knife. Willie then plunges that kitchen knife into the boyfriend’s back, killing him.

20 years later, Willie has grown up into an awkward mute. Lacey has grown up into Suzanna Love. They live on a farm with Lacey’s husband, Jake, and their aunt and uncle. Lacey has a kid named Kevin. One day, Lacey and Willie receive a letter from their terminally ill mother. She wants to see them again. She’s hoping they can reconcile before she kicks the bucket. This triggers Lacey’s repressed trauma over witnessing her brother commit a murder. Willie has no response at all.

While everyone sleeps, Willie sneaks out of his room. We cut suddenly to Lacey being dragged across the floor in her underwear. She’s tied to her bed, terrorized by the sight of a man holding a knife. She wakes up screaming. Willie returns to his room. Why he left in the first place is anyone’s guess. Be prepared for more scenes like this. This movie has no idea what to do with Willie. He’s basically an afterthought, which is odd because he should be infinitely more fucked in the head by their childhood than his sister. A nightmare of being tied to a bed and threatened by a knife-wielding man seems perfect for him. But Suzanna Love looks damn good in a torn negligee, so the scene went to her.

Jake thinks Lacey should see her mother. It would be good for her. When Lacey refuses, Jake suggests they take a trip to her childhood home instead. They visit a shrink who places Lacey under a hypnotic spell. She tells them about the murder. After she starts talking like a demon, they end the session. This is a truly weird occurrence, but no one pays any attention to it, writing it off as nonsense. Back at the farm, Lacey’s horny friend Katie stops by to get some eggs and (hopefully) fondle (a) Willie. He nearly chokes to her death, but stops when he catches sight of himself in a mirror. Katie runs off, and nothing ever comes from it. It’s never mentioned again. Willie begins painting all the mirrors in the house black. Mirrors were never part of the narrative before this point, so this may seem confusing. We probably should have prefaced that scene with this next one.

Lacey and Jake arrive at the house. A teenage trio invites Lacey and Jake inside, confusing them for potential buyers. Their absent parents have the house listed for sale. In her mother’s old bedroom, Lacey sees a vision of the abusive boyfriend in the mirror. Freaking out, she smashes the mirror to pieces. Jake apologizes for his wife’s outburst. He gives the teens some money for their trouble and bags up the broken glass. He even takes the frame. Jake says they’ll put it back together at the farm and use it for some makeshift therapy sessions.

Unfortunately for the teens, that mirror contained the spirit of the abusive boyfriend, and smashing it let him out. And boy, is he pissed. He forces one of the teens to stab herself in the throat with scissors. He kills another by breaking his neck with a windowsill. The last teen is killed when the spirit lightly hits her in the face with the medicine cabinet door. I hit myself in the face after watching that, and I didn’t die. Lucky bitch.

Back at the farm, the spirit tries to impale Willie with a pitchfork, but Lacey saves him. That is the one and only time Willie and the spirit interact. A piece of mirror stuck to the bottom of Kevin’s shoe reflects the sun while he’s fishing with his mom. The light shines on some teens across the lake, dooming two of them to death by impalement (through the mouth, no less). Jake struggles to put a piece of glass back into the mirror frame, shredding his fingers as he unconvincingly fights against an evil force. This is enough to convince him that an evil spirit is running loose in the house. After a piece of mirror leaps into Lacey’s eye, they call a priest. They’ll need one, too, as the dead boyfriend is possessing Lacey’s body. It doesn’t do much with it, though. Mostly just stands in the kitchen.

Anyway, I have some thoughts and questions.

This film is littered with roaming camera shots from the ghost’s POV. Why does it hide behind corners and duck out of sight when characters enter the room? It’s a fucking ghost. You can see through them. And why can we hear the ghost breathing in the POV shots? Since when do ghosts have lungs? And why can water vanquish evil spirits? I know vampires fear running water, but why do mirror shards explode when under a running faucet? Do the priests bless the ground wells around here? And how does a priest get stabbed in the back so hard that his head starts bleeding? I’ve stubbed my toes plenty of time, but I’ve never gotten a nosebleed from it. Is that normal? Is there something wrong with me? Am I defective?

The ending promises exorcism and excitement, but the priest just picks the glass off Lacey’s face, and the movie ends. You can tell they really wanted a house with an exterior that looked like the Amityville house. You know how those windows kinda looked like eyes? Well, this house has them too, but they’re smaller and further apart. So the house here is like the Anya Taylor-Joy version of the Amityville house. It isn’t nearly as impressive, but that goes for basically everything here. This ain’t no THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. That said, it ain’t no AMITYVILLE VIBRATOR either.

Although this movie is dumber than a ten-pound bag of parrot shit, it’s still fun enough to warrant a watch. It has a few good subversive moments, like when the hot, busty teen takes off her bathrobe to reveal she’s fully dressed underneath, or the way Willie is never really targeted by a spirit out for revenge against his murderer. And if you really want a movie that subverts your expectations, THE BOOGEY MAN is gonna knock your socks off. Oh, you expect things to happen? Well, there are whole scenes where nothing happens! Take that cat and shove it up your ass, Blake Snyder!

There I go, talking shit again. THE BOOGEY MAN isn’t an unwatchable clusterfuck. It’s a watchable clusterfuck, an ill-conceived mash-up of HALLOWEEN and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, with a dash of THE EXORCIST for good measure. Kitchen sink films can be a lot of fun to watch, and this one largely is. It’s the good kind of bad movie. It’s bad enough to have you chuckling uncontrollably, but never so bad you start bleeding from your head. From time to time, turn your brain off and watch something dumb. It’s good for you.