The Boogeyman (1980)

User Rating:

3.9/10   

Director:

Ulli Lommel

Writers:

David Herschel (writer)
Ulli Lommel (writer)

Release Date:

7 November 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

The most terrifying nightmare of childhood is about to return!

Plot:

Through the reflection in the mirror, a girl witnesses her mother's boyfriend's murder.

Plot Keywords:

Mirror | Murder | Girl | Reflection | Revenge

Cast

Suzanna Love	...	Lacey
Ron James	...	Jake
John Carradine	...	Dr. Warren
Nicholas Love	...	Willy
Raymond Boyden	...	Kevin
Felicite Morgan	...	Aunt Helen
Bill Rayburn	...	Uncle Ernest
Llewelyn Thomas	...	Father Reilly
Jay Wright	...	Young Willy
Natasha Schiano	...	Young Lacey
Gillian Gordon	...	Lacey and Willy's Mother
Howard Grant	...	The Lover
Jane Pratt	...	Jane
Lucinda Ziesing	...	Susan
David Swim	...	Timmy

Also Known As:

The Bogey Man (UK) (video title)

Runtime:

82 min | UK:85 min (extended version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:18 (re-rating: 1992) (cut) (re-rating: 2000) (uncut) | UK:(Banned) (1984-1992) | UK:X (original rating: 1980) | Finland:(Banned) (heavily cut) (1981) | Finland:K-18 (heavily cut) (1981) (re-rating) | Italy:VM14 | Singapore:M18 | Australia:R | France:-16 | Norway:(Banned) (video version) (1983) | USA:R | West Germany:18 | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA

Company:

Jerry Gross Organization, The

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Lacey and Kevin are at the lake and Kevin says, "Mommy, mommy, I caught a fish, I caught a fish!" He is shouting, yet it is clearly Lacey doing the reeling in - you can see her shirtsleeves and it is a female adults arms and hands. Even more obviously, little Kevin is wearing a long-sleeved jacket.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Zombie Nation (2004)

Soundtrack:

Not From Her World

strange ...

Interesting premise: pieces of a broken mirror that "witnessed" a murder are now possessed by the dead man's spirit and are causing more murder and mayhem 20 years later.

The scene with all of the mirrors in the house being painted black (a Rolling Stones reference?) was very creepy, but the idea of just simply running water on the broken mirror to destroy it was pathetic. The movie clearly was filmed on a pocketchange budget, which both helps and hurts the movie: on one hand it's surprising that anything good came from such a low budget, but you could also wonder what the movie might have been like if it did have more of a budget. The camera work - in particular the scene where sexy little Susannah Love is talking to her shrink John Carradine, filmed looking into a mirror - is intriging and puzzeling at the same time. Maybe that was the intent, I don't know. The movie starts too slowly and ends too suddenly, it doesn't make alot of sense along the way either, which is maybe why they chose to end it the (abrupt) way they did. A couple of cute girls also show up here and there, but they're killed of in ways that could only be described as confusing. It seems like the people that made this movie had some good ideas but just couldn't make them gel into a cohesive story, so this ends up being just a mish mash of scenes: some clever, some pathetic and everywhere in between. The ending also seems like they were trying to turn this movie into an ongoing series, but "Boogeyman II" pretty much ruined that idea ...

really bizarre ...

**1/2 out of ****