After the fun, gruesome old-school slasher shenanigans of BOOGEYMAN 2, this latest straight to DVD Ghost House Pictures sequel returns to the generic CG-enhanced supernatural Boogeyman shtick of the original theatrical release. It’s routine on every level, with its unscary skittering central figure of fear displaying all the bonafide menace of a digitally enhanced member of Cradle of Filth.
For the first half hour or so, the movie follows the troubled daughter of BOOGEYMAN 2’s dead professor (Tobin Bell) as she warns disbelievers that the Boogeyman her dad wrote obsessively about is real and on the prowl at her university. She falls victim to the very entity she yammers about, and consequently, another student (Erin Cahill) comes to believe too, struggling to convince a wealth of stock characters of the threat to their lives as the bodies pile up in the dorms.
Beset with goofy fake scares, generic characterizations (fragile heroine with troubled past, black stoner, wise cracking British bloke, etc.) and too much ELM STREET-derived reality / dream world blurring, this by-the-numbers affair has a plot that creaks badly as it moves from A to B with zilch in the way of tension. The deaths – including a stoner impaled on his own bong – are also ELM STREET influenced but dispiritingly tame and poorly executed : director Jones even fudges a potentially groovy air vent fan splattering.
Some coy, brief girlie nudity is thrown into the mix to try and convince us that we’re not completely wasting our time, but no one’s going to be fooled by a movie so weak that even Tobin Bell refused to turn up. His visage is glimpsed in a photo but the gravelly voiceover reading out his old diary entries is all too obviously an impostor who spent a week watching the SAW franchise over and over. Arguably the most feeble aspect of the enterprise is a duff, painfully wooden boyfriend character who spends the whole film disbelieving the heroine until an abrupt final-reel about-face when he announces “I’m sorry for not believing you…”
The borrowings from better movies are obvious throughout : notably some SHINING-inspired scenes of blood flooding corridors and Laundromats, all of which are ruined by just how shockingly crap CG blood looks. There’s also an ill-advised riff on the 1981 MY BLOODY VALENTINE’s washing machine death. If you’re a die-hard masochist watch it in a double bill with Ghost House Pictures’ other recent release THE GRUDGE 3.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
