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Released by: 88 Films
Released on: March 23rd, 2015.
Director: Ulli Lommel
Cast: Suzanna Love, John Carradine, Ron James
Year: 1980
Purchase From Diabolik DVD
The Movie:
Directed by Ulli Lommel, who co-writer with leading lady Suzanna Love, 1980's The Boogey Man (released in the UK, where it's being released on Blu-ray by 88 Films, as The Bogey Man) is an odd duck in the pantheon of slasher films. It's partly a stalk and slash movie, partly a supernatural revenge picture and partly a haunted house film but it mixes these subgenres pretty well. It doesn't always make perfect sense and periodically segues into severe bouts of goofiness but to its credit the film is never less than genuinely entertaining.
The story begins with an opening scene in which a woman, brandishing a bottle of hooch, talks the stalking off of her leg and puts it over the head of her lover. Just as they're about to get it on, they're interrupted by two young kids. Buddy gets off his mount and proceeds to tie the boy up in his bed, bound and gagged, so that he can get back to boffing his mom. When the boy is freed shortly after, he heads to the kitchen, grabs a sizable butcher knife and gives the horny bastard what for, right in front of his little sister!
A few decades later and that boy has grown into a man named Willy (Nicholas Love), now mute and maybe a little slow. He lives with his sister Lacey (Suzanna Love), who also survived that night, and shares a house with she and her husband Jake (Ron James) along with Aunt Helen (Felicite Morgan) and Uncle Ernest (Bill Rayburn). Their adult life seems peaceful enough until one day they receive a letter from their dying mother requesting that Willy and Lacey come visit her one last time. This brings back some bad old memories and Lacey starts having bad nightmares. Jake figures the best way to help her get over all of this is to take her to the old house where Willy killed that guy to begin with, but that ends poorly. Before you know it, the inhabitants of that house (one of whom is an annoying kid who runs around yelling “BOOGEYMAN!â€) are dead and a rather suspect mirror has been hauled out of that house and hung in Helen and Ernest's kitchen. Things continue to head south and even a session with Doctor Warren (John Carradine) can't seem to help things.
When shards of the mirror wind up in various places, the evil it contains seems to spread and the bodies pile up leaving only one man capable of saving the day - local priest Father Reilly (Llewelyn Thomas), who seems to hang around the house a lot in hopes of scoring a home cooked meal.
This one has an interesting premise, but man, this movie is not without its very obvious and very serious flaws. First of all, there's really nothing 'boogeyman' about this film. It has to do with an evil spirit that travels through shards of a broken mirror and possesses those around it at will, causing them to kill, kill, kill! It's more of a supernatural/possession film in that regard than a slasher film. Having said that, those kill scenes do bring home memories of some of Jason Vorhees' work from the Friday The 13th Films, so the slasher element is definitely there. A few gratuitous nude shots and some random teenagers who show up, make out and then die also root this one within the confines of the slasher genre. The supernatural element comes back in a nifty twist towards the end where, without wanting to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, Lacey's character basically turns into a strange variation of Paul Stanley from Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park.
Poorly acted by the leads but featuring some fun supporting work from Thomas and Carradine, the characters aren't very well fleshed out or interesting. Having said that, the movie is competently directed and the pacing is fine. In fact, the movie moves along at a decent clip and enough happens throughout its brisk running time that it isn't a dull film, even if it isn't a very good film when you start to think about the actual structure of the storyline. A few unexpected jump scares are moderately amusing, and the triple homicide that really gets the ball rolling is gory, nasty, and inspired. Don't go into this one expecting any serious scares as there aren't any to be found, but The Bogey Man is definitely a really fun time killer and an entertaining product of its time.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Bogey Man arrives on Blu-ray from 88 Films framed at 1.78.1 widescreen aspect ratio in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer. Some shots do look a little softer than others but for the most part the image here is quite strong in detail, texture and depth. Colors are reproduced very nicely, while the black levels tend to be pretty strong. Skin tones look nice and lifelike and the picture is clean and clear and free of all but minor print damage. There are no issues with noise reduction or compression issues and this is quite a solid looking transfer of a very colorful, sometimes fairly garish looking film.
The English language LPCM 2.0 Mono track is also quite good. It has more depth than most mono tracks do and the dialogue sounds quite natural, properly mixed in against the score. The score has good range and presence to it and there are no problems with any hiss or distortion while the weird sound effects used throughout the movie also have decent weight behind them.
The main extra on the disc is an interview with Ulli Lommel which is basically a seventeen minute long career overview that begins with a brief recap of how he got into film, worked with Andy Warhol and then came to make a bunch of horror movies. He goes into a fair bit of detail here about this particular film, how Carradine came on board, the film's success and its fairly notorious sequel. Lommel is very relaxed here, almost too relaxed to the point where he sort of drones rather than really speaks, but the info relayed is interesting enough that fans should appreciate the inclusion of this interview on the disc.
Aside from that we get a trailer for the feature, a few TV spots, trailers for an assortment of other 88 Films releases, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
The Bogey Man is a weird mish mash of elements from films like Halloween and The Amityville Horror but it's got enough of its own thing going on that it's easy to see the appeal it holds for horror fans. It's well paced and features some pretty impressive kill scenes and on top of that, it features a fantastic and completely gratuitous John Carradine appearance. What's not to love? 88 Films' Blu-ray looks and sounds quite good and contains a few supplements as well. A fine release for a really fun film.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
