Editorials
‘Boogeyman’ – A Look Back at the Forgotten Trilogy from 2005-2008
This weekend, Rob Savage (Host) brings his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Boogeyman to theaters. But for those of us who were of horror-watching age eighteen years ago (that hurts to say out loud), there was 2005’s Boogeyman… a horror film that launched an entire trilogy.
That first movie was successful enough to spawn both Boogeyman 2 and Boogeyman 3, though both sequels went straight to video here in the States. So, in honor of the upcoming The Boogeyman, let us take a look back at the Boogeymen of old. Even if they are completely and utterly unrelated in every way possible… and we cannot stress that enough.
BOOGEYMAN (2005)
Directed by Stephen Kay (who would end up with a very successful career directing TV series episodes such as Yellowstone, Friday Night Lights and The Shield), Boogeyman came to us at an interesting time for the horror genre. “Torture porn” was in full swing with Wolf Creek, Saw and Hostel all releasing. PG-13 horror competition included The Grudge, The Skeleton Key and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Platinum Dunes had their Amityville Horror remake, Rob Zombie had The Devil’s Rejects, Zack Snyder had Dawn of the Dead, and The Descent melted all of our faces. It was a strong two years between 2003 and 2005. Not so much for the ole’ Boogeyman, however, which was not very well received. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its moments.
Tim, played by Barry Watson (Sorority Boys, Teaching Mrs. Tingle), grows up in psychiatric care after he sees his dad dragged into the closet by a mysterious dark force and thrown around like Jim Carrey during the shark scene in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Spoiler Alert: It was, in fact, the Boogeyman). Now that he’s older, the death of his mother and haunting visions bring him back to the house where it all started. There, the Boogeyman tries to lure him into closets, drawers and various dark orifices in an effort to finish what he started.
The main issue at the core of the movie is undoubtedly the editing. For whatever reason it feels like we’re constantly trapped between a tag team of the dude who filmed those shaky Jason Bourne fight scenes and the guy who edited those freak out cuts from the Saw movies. There are, however, rad moments of camerawork featuring the camera gliding through the spooky atmospheres with a Sam Raimi-esque vibe (the trilogy is produced by Raimi’s own Ghost House Pictures, it’s interesting to note). Once we’re inside the lovely home of death, the atmosphere is similar to that of the Blumhouse “floating chair” opening. It’s just unfortunate the execution never matches the ambiance. There’s really just not much happening until the end of the film. And that’s where things get messier than a Fyre Festival lunch line.
The final act of Boogeyman throws the entire kitchen sink at your face. The confrontation with the closet monster shows him up close quite a bit and he goes through multiple physical form changes. It’s a tall task for a movie that up to this point has shown you nearly nothing aside from a pair of Hulk-Hands grabbing at Tim in the closet. Unfortunately, the majority of the creature that they‘ve suddenly decided to show so much of is very noticeably unrealistic and awkward. Especially with the editing making what’s unfolding on screen harder to untangle than an Original Nintendo controller wire. The WORST part of cleaning your room in the ’90s.
There’s something to be said for the dark aura and atmosphere of Boogeyman and the flurry of attempted punches in the final round. Even if none of them end up landing.
BOOGEYMAN 2 (2007)
Back in 2007, I kept hearing from folks that Boogeyman 2 was shockingly scarier and overall better than the original. I would tend to agree based on one aspect of this film that goes harder than Halloween III’s Dr. Challis at an open bar: the death scenes.
Boogeyman 2 trades in the supernatural dread for a mostly straight up slasher sequel. Laura (Danielle Savre) and her brother (Matt Cohen) witness their parents brutally murdered by a home invader who is never captured. They deem him “The Boogeyman” while dealing with their trauma and develop an unhealthy phobia. This leads to them each eventually checking into a mental health clinic run by Dr. Mitchell Allen (none other than Jigsaw himself, Tobin Bell) and we have ourselves a situation very reminiscent of A Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Warriors. Each of the other teenagers in the mental facility have their own issues – ranging from an extreme fear of the dark to bulimia – when a masked killer shows up and (very Freddy Krueger like) uses their mental traumas to torture and kill them in various fashions.
The kills are mean, brutal and often. For instance (spoiler incoming), a kid named Paul (Johnny Simmons) is an extreme germaphobe. So, the killer sneaks gigantic cockroaches into his food and when he accidentally chews one the killer shows up and hands him a gigantic bottle of hardcore industrial cleaner, which he chugs. The camera then treats the audience to the after effects of his chemically burned and melted throat. He forces tubes inside the mouth and body of an anorexic girl, pumping her with fat until she literally explodes. This killer may have an uninspired spray painted Dollar General Halloween skull mask on his face, but he’s as gnarly as they come when it’s time to put a hurting on folks.
Boogeyman 2 is absolutely a mixed bag where you have to wade through a very questionably acted (at times) and non-campy melodramatic soap opera flair to get to the goods. But for those in search of a lower budget and extreme slasher with a mean streak the likes of ole’ Freddy himself? This one has some gems deep within it. Despite the complete and total change in subgenre from one film to the next, Boogeyman 2 actually offers a surprising amount of connections to our “surviving” characters from the first film, giving us a dark update on how well everyone fared afterwards. (Warning: It’s about as depressing as Googling how many of the bars from John Taffer’s “Bar Rescue” are still operating today.)
BOOGEYMAN 3 (2008)
Somehow, Boogeyman 3 featured the same writers as Boogeyman 2 yet feels like it was made by a complete stranger. The film picks up with Audrey (Nikki Sanderson), the daughter of Tobin Bell’s character from Boogeyman 2. It follows her to college after she reads her father’s journal (or rather, the journal is read to us by a guy who isn’t Tobin Bell doing “Tobin Bell voice”). The Boogeyman shows up at her college and is now a completely different entity than we’ve seen before. No longer possessing a human, he is now somewhat of a mix between the demon from the cover of Night of the Demons 3, Baghuul from Sinister, one of the dudes from Insidious, and the lead guy under the stairs in The People Under the Stairs. He suddenly moves in strange electrical bursts. Sort of like Samara from The Ring as she crawls out of the TV. Unfortunately, it kind of just plays as though he’s not actually in the room. As if he’s some sort of green screened Kool Aid Man wall hole light projection. Look, I genuinely don’t know what’s going on here. I wish I could help. I wish I could help myself understand.
To put a positive spin on it, the film is able to successfully move the storyline from a mental hospital to a college full of potential victims and the story adds a few interesting layers. The main character Sarah (Erin Cahill) hosts a student-run radio show and they present the idea (and familiar horror trope) that the more people hear about the Boogeyman, the more powerful he becomes. The movie takes this premise and uses the reach of Sarah’s radio show to some interesting results and many murders. One in particular involving someone’s head being shoved into a broken bong. Which, you obviously have to respect.
All in all, Boogeyman 3 doesn’t have the tools to stand on its own and isn’t interested enough in the other two films to reasonably add to their lore either. This franchise seems more confused about what to do with itself than I am, half in the bag, staring at a Cheesecake Factory menu. I mean, have you seen those things? They’re thicker than a VHS copy of Titanic. Too many options. So many of them not cheesecake.
Putting the entire Boogeyman franchise into perspective, there are interesting ideas in each film. It’s a strange little franchise that Ghost House Pictures brought to us over the course of three years. I think there could have been a real audience for it but unfortunately none of the movies ever really formed into anything with staying power.
Who knows? Maybe someday they’ll try again. For now, we’re looking forward to the horrors that await in The Boogeyman, which again has nothing to do with THIS Boogeyman…
The great Ernest Dickerson turns seventy-five years old this month, so we’re looking back at his most memorable contribution to the horror genre – 1995’s Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight!
The film hit screens while the Tales from the Crypt series was winding down its run on television, and it stands apart with a story that feels a step or two removed from the franchise norm. That was the smart play, though, as the show’s stories – and those from the original EC comics – work best in short bites. The result is a film that holds up beautifully as a gory good time.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)
Commentator: Ernest Dickerson (director), Michael Felsher (moderator)
1. Dickerson was in post-production on Surviving the Game when he got a call from his agent saying that producer Gil Adler wanted to meet about a Tales from the Crypt feature film. It went well, so Dickerson met with Joel Silver next and secured the job.
2. The original screenplay for the film came to the producers as a spec script wholly detached from the Tales from the Crypt brand. They added the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir) bookends to make it fit.
3. Dickerson was more familiar with the original EC comic books having read them as a kid, but he had watched a few episodes of the HBO series, so he knew what the current vibe was for the project.
4. Adler directed the film’s wraparound segments, meaning Dickerson never actually got to work with the creepy puppet. “Gil and the Crypt Keeper had a great relationship,” he adds, “they worked together for years.”
5. While he was new to the Tales from the Crypt family, Dickerson had previously worked as a director of photography on the Tales from the Darkside anthology series. That show is underappreciated in my humble opinion, and I will go to bat for both it and the equally underloved Monsters.
6. A big appeal of the horror genre for Dickerson is the idea of dark mysteries that challenge our imagination. For this film, that came down to the mythology being created between the characters.
7. Five executive producers are listed in the opening credits, but Dickerson says the only two he had dealings with were Silver and Richard Donner. The other three were Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and David Giler.
8. Dickerson had only ever seen Billy Zane in movies with a full head of hair, so he was surprised when Zane showed up on the first day with a bald head. “He had this case, and he opened up the case that he had all these hair pieces in, and he says, ‘So which one of these do you think I should use?’” Dickerson looked at him and suggested he just go bald for the character.
9. While the bulk of the opening exteriors were filmed in a desert just outside Los Angeles, the shot of the old church at 11:26 was created on a warehouse hangar soundstage where the film’s interiors were shot.
10. When he had read the script, Dickerson pictured the character of Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith) “as a little, tough lady.” He had recently seen Smith in Menace II Society, and while the producers had someone else in mind for the role, he fought to get her instead.
11. Just as Zane surprised Dickerson with his hair (or lack thereof), Smith arrived on the first day with her hair dyed platinum white. He “liked the idea” but asked her to please get it tweaked so it looked more yellowish blond. “It’s definitely a statement.”
12. He had seen Brenda Bakke in the 1989 sci-fi/action film from Japan, Gunhed, and thought she’d be great here as Cordelia. The rest of us might recognize her from Death Spa or Trucks.
13. Felsher comments that the film’s setup does a good job not telegraphing who’s going to live or die, and he uses the “nice guy” (Charles Fleischer) and “the kid” (Ryan O’Donohue) as examples. “You don’t play by those rules here,” he says, and Dickerson replies that he wanted to subvert those rules. That extends to Smith as well because she’s Black, “and usually in movies like this they’re the first folks to die.”
14. Dickerson says they had forty days of filming, “which, the way I’m used to working, was a very generous schedule.” It was budgeted at around $10 million.
15. This probably won’t surprise you, but Zane improvised the bit at 26:25 after he jumps out the window and says, “Fuck this cowboy shit! You fuckin’, hodunk Podunk, well, then, motherfuckers!”
16. In the original script, the demons that The Collector (Zane) raises from the dirt actually looked more like the people they used to be. “They were more human,” but the very smart decision was made in pre-production to make them look far more unique instead.
17. The demons are killed by shooting their eyes, but Dickerson felt there should be one more element to it. “Shoot out their eyes, you gotta duck because the souls come shooting out, and if it hits ya, boom, it can kill ya.” This is a fun touch.
18. He’s been asked more than once if these demons are where Peter Jackson got the idea for how the orcs would look in his Lord of the Rings movies. “They do look like orcs.”
19. He recalls having seen Ronny Yu’s The Bride with White Hair shortly before going to work on Demon Knight, and he hoped to bring some of that staged style into his own film. An example of that in practice is Brayker’s (William Sadler) brief flashbacks to Christ on the cross.
20. Character deaths were mostly based on the idea that “each person’s downfall was going to be predicated by their weakness.” The Collector discovers someone’s weakness and then uses it against them. Cordelia wants to be loved, Jeryline wants to travel, Uncle Willy (Dick Miller) is a horndog for both liquor and ladies, Danny loves horror comics, etc.
21. Dickerson says that plenty of genre classics were in the back of his head while making the film, including Assault on Precinct 13, Alien, Aliens, and more.
22. Cordelia is possessed into a demonic form, and Dickerson’s idea for how she’d look was originally a bit different. “Since Cordelia was a prostitute, I thought that her mouth should actually be a vertical slit that was in her stomach… which would open up with teeth and a tongue.” It was nixed, he says, when “the wife of one of the producers read that and said ‘no way you’re putting that in the movie.’”
23. The key makes an appearance in the followup, Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood, but it wasn’t originally meant to. Apparently, early test audiences expected it to be a more connected sequel to Demon Knight, so the filmmakers added it in to appease them. This is where I go on record saying that Bordello of Blood is a fun time. Can’t touch Demon Knight, obviously, but it’s more entertaining than its reputation suggests.
24. They had to film Uncle Willy’s bar scene “dream” twice, once with the women topless and once with them in bikinis, to have versions for both theaters and television broadcast. “Dick’s a pro.” (To be fair, Dickerson says this in regard to Miller having to endure the makeup application, but the sentiment fits both situations, so…)
25. Dickerson says he’s “always amazed at the love that people show this film,” and adds that fans bring it up to him incredibly often. This is great to hear, as we should always be telling artists how much their work means to us while they’re still alive and able to hear it.
26. Zane also suggested the gag at 1:08:21 with the sponge coming out of his mouth. The beat reminds Dickerson to praise the actor even more, adding that he was an “ally” to the director when “bad ideas” came down from the studio suits.
27. He didn’t get any pushback on killing little Danny. He did insist on one added element, though, as he wanted to immediately follow the boy exploding in the air with a shot of his bloody and torn sneaker hitting the ground below. “And the sneaker had to be a hightop.”
28. Dickerson says there’s “something kinky sexy about” Smith being covered in blood, and then the two commentators go quiet for almost two minutes out of respect for the scene. It’s a good opportunity to reflect on how Dickerson had previously mentioned Alien and Aliens as films being in the back of his head during filming, and how two scenes here reflect that – Jeryline stripping down to her underwear for the final confrontation feels like a nod to Ridley Scott’s film, while an earlier scene with Irene (CCH Pounder) and Dep. Bob (Gary Farmer) realizing they’re surrounded and choosing to blow themselves up alongside some of the demons is something of a callback to the air vent sacrifice in James Cameron’s film.
29. Asked about the film’s critical reception at the time of release, Dickerson says it received good reviews from horror-loving critics and then talks about the importance of horror in general. “Horror has always been a great way of putting out ideas, of talking about some of the things that affect us as people. Some of the best horror, like the best science fiction, talks about what it’s like to be human. Some of the best horror gets very political.”
30. The original ending would have featured The Collector showing “his true self, which is a demon made of fire.” They spent a lot of time trying to make it work, but it was “extremely difficult… back in the day of analog effects.” It was rewritten into the faceoff between him and Jeryline featuring the dancing, the crotch fire, Zane’s attempts at saying “love,” and his eventual demise from her bloody spit.
31. They both agree that a direct sequel to Demon Knight could be a lot of fun, but Dickerson says he’s unaware of any talk on the possibility.
32. Dickerson was super excited about this new Scream Factory Blu-ray in 2015, and he mentions that before its release, he had imported a Blu-ray from Germany presumably to enjoy the film in HD. He’s just like us! (Or am I the only one here who’s imported a German Blu-ray of the much maligned werewolf flick Big Bad Wolf…)
Quotes Without Context
“I was so happy to get Dick Miller for this movie.”
“There was a time when guys used to put ketchup on everything.”
“I’m a big student of Hitchcock, and the best way to make a moment of horror work is to lull the audience into a false sense of security.”
“A villain should always be the most interesting person in a movie.”
“They were a really great bunch of performers who were performing on these little leg-extension stilts wearing a diaper that had a radio-controlled tail that was being manipulated by a special effects tech right out of the frame.”
“It’s hard to direct air; it doesn’t do what you want.”
“The only censorship problem came from the producer’s wife, who didn’t want the vagina dentalis [sic] in the movie.”
“One of the executives wanted to know why the devil didn’t try to have sex with Jada.”
“It always starts with the script.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
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