Review of Boogeyman (2012) by Cindy J — 20 Nov 2008

One of the reasons I love the horror genre is because its intrinsic need to address human fears always makes it ripe for psycho-social interpretations. For example, I usually end up hating films like Hostel, The Ruins, and Turistas but they become interesting when viewed metaphorically as studies of American xenophobia.

So... Boogeyman. The surface is unremarkable. There is an appreciable amount of excellent shotwork here (I really enjoyed the backwards rollerskating girl), and I also commend the patience of the film in building atmosphere, tension, and eeriness before its scares. However, the movie cheapens its payoffs by relying heavily on noise cues with scattered hyper-editing and the eventual reveal of the Boogeyman proved to be a terror-less CGI affair. Also, the brief foray into time-travel mechanics was distracting and out-of-place.

But what I did appreciate was the quiet understory going on here. The narrative implies that the lies we tell our children can end up destroying us in their eyes and warping their view of the world even into adulthood, effectively destroying their relationships with other people as well. Then, the only way they can work past their fear is to confront it head on and obliterate the memories of their childhood to embrace a new disillusioned (and perhaps bleak) self-identity.

For a film to say all of this implicitly, it's commendable. While I don't particularly agree with this message, its coherence and attempt at subtlety I can appreciate. If it hadn't been there, I would be lambasting the movie now for failing to provide proper allegorical content for a nearly universal element of child-parent interaction (that is, control through duplicity).

One thing I wished the plot had done better was play with narrator reliability. When your main character at one point states "I don't know where I've been or what I've done" and he keeps seeing horrible visions after extensive treatment in a psych-ward, his sanity should be up for grabs. On a subconscious level if nothing else, "The Boogeyman exists" will never be as scary as "The Boogeyman exists when you believe he does." Making his existence undeniable makes the movie surreal. You tell me what hits harder to audience members: "Monsters might be real" or "You could go insane and scare yourself to death." We are, after all, the authors of our own nightmares.

The occasionally interesting camera work, slow tension-builders, and underlying message fall just short in bringing maturity to Boogeyman's cheap scare tacticts and overall delivery, letting the film blend away into the sea of polished PG-13 horror blase. Good for a cheap rental.