Movie Review of "Boogeyman"
The first thing I noticed upon watching the movie "Boogeyman", produced by the wonderful Sam Raimi and his Ghost House pictures, is the preview for The Cave . This was a disappointment on my part... not because the movie looks terribly bad. It doesn't look horrible or great, but that's not the point. The point is that I have 30 pages of a script called, tentatively, "The Cave", about a group of youngsters who thought it would be cool to have a party within a cave. And there, one of them awakens a group of demons.
Different enough from the premiss of the preview I saw, but similar enough so I had to scrap the idea of them going into the cave... which was a pity and caused a lot of heartache, considering I was very pleased with my premiss.
At any rate, the movie Boogeyman was one of those hyped up movies. These are the type that get your expectations higher than they should. I am not a big fan of hype, because it brings the uber-critic in me to the light, and I cannot help but be highly critical. And so, with Boogeyman, I catch a few flaws that do not necessarily ruin the movie, but make it slightly less worthy of the hype than it should have been.
For starters, the movie's characters, with the exception of Tim, are completely flat. And I do mean COMPLETELY! He has a girlfriend... the only thing the viewer gets to learn about her is that she's blond, frisky (with the insinuation that Tim rarely ever ends up having sex), and works with her boyfriend. Oh, and she's called "friend" a few times, confusingly, though the manifest logic is that the girl who calls her such is jealous... but he calls her "friend" right back, which appears, at least directly, that he is also pushing her back.
And indeed, he leaves and we forget about the character except for passing remarks. He does eerily well without her, not that a man shouldn't do well without his boyfriend, but this guy doesn't even miss her when he spends time away. Curious...
Further, when she finally does show up, it is extremely brief. She takes off her clothes for a bath (don't worry, guys, the actress retains some dignity and doesn't flash the camera) in order to help Tim relax, and then disappears.
We get a little more depth with the secondary love interest that Tim has, as we learn her background. She grew up with Tim. We learn she has family, which we learn passively through Tim's girlfriend, but the family, like Tim's girlfriend (Jennifer), only show up for a brief second, and are annoyingly dim. The father drills Tim with questions in a particularly stereotyped way, causing him to relive a traumatic childhood, which sets events off.
Even Tim himself is a withdrawn character. He is more developed than the others (who just appear to disappear), but only slightly. We learn he has a strong link to children, as seen by ghosts that appear to him, and through his experiences at the children's psychiatric hospital. We learn that he is brave, through the manner with which he kills the Boogeyman (I won't spoil it for you!). All in all, if you are watching this movie for character, FORGET IT! The main character is either written by a misogynist who does not want to see him in a relationship, or relationships were just an afterthought to the plot. Either way, people who are supposed to have a relationship with the main character, sexual or otherwise, just appear merely long enough to establish their existence, at which point they promptly disappear. Except for the SECONDARY love interest (Tim seems to forget that he ever had a girlfriend... the disappearance of his uncle sets off more emotional discharge than her disappearance).
However, this movie is not without its pros. For starters, all of the actors deliver a strong, believable performance, even if their characters are flatter than a board. Even the blond girlfriend, although ditsy, has the potential to be someone you know or to whom you can relate.
The directing is also top notch, although a little bit music-video style. Every now and then, the scenes will be chaotic, split many times, shaky... all to enhance the creepiness, and it does do so, but it proves a little disjointed at times, and can sometimes even be a bloody headache! Otherwise, great use is made out of the creepy lighting on the set of the haunted house, even though it is never really explained HOW the house became haunted (are we supposed to believe Tim created the monster from sheer will? Fright? Was there some traumatic experience in the household? Is Tim some kind of "special" kid, like in The Ring, who can create what he wants?). Another aspect of the movie that actually worked quite strongly was the child actress, who gave a simple but rather well-done performance.
All in all, though, the movie did for me what White Noise did: that is, create a wonderfully creative and lively atmosphere only to be drowned in bad storytelling. Without going too much into White Noise, suffice to say that the hauntings in that movie are explained as poorly as in Boogeyman. Both movies would be utterly destroyed by a five year old viewer, constantly asking the question, "why?" For White Noise, the question, also a SPOILER ALERT, "if the ghosts were powerful enough to kill, WHY do they only kill themain character after following him for a great length of time?" For Boogeyman, it is the question, "if the Boogeyman is real, why is he real? Is he a metaphor? If so, why is he a metaphor? For what purpose? If he is real, how has he come to life?" All these questions remain at the end of the movie, and, for one who began the movie with a hypercritical mood, they still bug me as I write this.
All in all, Boogeyman offers exactly what White Noise did. A creepy, wild ride without any explanation, although worse than White Noise, Boogeyman has little character development. I cannot help but recommend the movie, though, for all its flaws, as a genuinely creepy movie. Had the writers thought more about why this creature existed in the first place, the movie would have been much stronger. As is, I cannot recommend it as a purchase, but I can recommend it as a rainy-stormy-night rental.
But don't try to look for depth.
Different enough from the premiss of the preview I saw, but similar enough so I had to scrap the idea of them going into the cave... which was a pity and caused a lot of heartache, considering I was very pleased with my premiss.
At any rate, the movie Boogeyman was one of those hyped up movies. These are the type that get your expectations higher than they should. I am not a big fan of hype, because it brings the uber-critic in me to the light, and I cannot help but be highly critical. And so, with Boogeyman, I catch a few flaws that do not necessarily ruin the movie, but make it slightly less worthy of the hype than it should have been.
For starters, the movie's characters, with the exception of Tim, are completely flat. And I do mean COMPLETELY! He has a girlfriend... the only thing the viewer gets to learn about her is that she's blond, frisky (with the insinuation that Tim rarely ever ends up having sex), and works with her boyfriend. Oh, and she's called "friend" a few times, confusingly, though the manifest logic is that the girl who calls her such is jealous... but he calls her "friend" right back, which appears, at least directly, that he is also pushing her back.
And indeed, he leaves and we forget about the character except for passing remarks. He does eerily well without her, not that a man shouldn't do well without his boyfriend, but this guy doesn't even miss her when he spends time away. Curious...
Further, when she finally does show up, it is extremely brief. She takes off her clothes for a bath (don't worry, guys, the actress retains some dignity and doesn't flash the camera) in order to help Tim relax, and then disappears.
We get a little more depth with the secondary love interest that Tim has, as we learn her background. She grew up with Tim. We learn she has family, which we learn passively through Tim's girlfriend, but the family, like Tim's girlfriend (Jennifer), only show up for a brief second, and are annoyingly dim. The father drills Tim with questions in a particularly stereotyped way, causing him to relive a traumatic childhood, which sets events off.
Even Tim himself is a withdrawn character. He is more developed than the others (who just appear to disappear), but only slightly. We learn he has a strong link to children, as seen by ghosts that appear to him, and through his experiences at the children's psychiatric hospital. We learn that he is brave, through the manner with which he kills the Boogeyman (I won't spoil it for you!). All in all, if you are watching this movie for character, FORGET IT! The main character is either written by a misogynist who does not want to see him in a relationship, or relationships were just an afterthought to the plot. Either way, people who are supposed to have a relationship with the main character, sexual or otherwise, just appear merely long enough to establish their existence, at which point they promptly disappear. Except for the SECONDARY love interest (Tim seems to forget that he ever had a girlfriend... the disappearance of his uncle sets off more emotional discharge than her disappearance).
However, this movie is not without its pros. For starters, all of the actors deliver a strong, believable performance, even if their characters are flatter than a board. Even the blond girlfriend, although ditsy, has the potential to be someone you know or to whom you can relate.
The directing is also top notch, although a little bit music-video style. Every now and then, the scenes will be chaotic, split many times, shaky... all to enhance the creepiness, and it does do so, but it proves a little disjointed at times, and can sometimes even be a bloody headache! Otherwise, great use is made out of the creepy lighting on the set of the haunted house, even though it is never really explained HOW the house became haunted (are we supposed to believe Tim created the monster from sheer will? Fright? Was there some traumatic experience in the household? Is Tim some kind of "special" kid, like in The Ring, who can create what he wants?). Another aspect of the movie that actually worked quite strongly was the child actress, who gave a simple but rather well-done performance.
All in all, though, the movie did for me what White Noise did: that is, create a wonderfully creative and lively atmosphere only to be drowned in bad storytelling. Without going too much into White Noise, suffice to say that the hauntings in that movie are explained as poorly as in Boogeyman. Both movies would be utterly destroyed by a five year old viewer, constantly asking the question, "why?" For White Noise, the question, also a SPOILER ALERT, "if the ghosts were powerful enough to kill, WHY do they only kill themain character after following him for a great length of time?" For Boogeyman, it is the question, "if the Boogeyman is real, why is he real? Is he a metaphor? If so, why is he a metaphor? For what purpose? If he is real, how has he come to life?" All these questions remain at the end of the movie, and, for one who began the movie with a hypercritical mood, they still bug me as I write this.
All in all, Boogeyman offers exactly what White Noise did. A creepy, wild ride without any explanation, although worse than White Noise, Boogeyman has little character development. I cannot help but recommend the movie, though, for all its flaws, as a genuinely creepy movie. Had the writers thought more about why this creature existed in the first place, the movie would have been much stronger. As is, I cannot recommend it as a purchase, but I can recommend it as a rainy-stormy-night rental.
But don't try to look for depth.
posted by Shannon | 8:42 AM
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1 comments
