The Boogeyman (1980) Ulli Lommel, not that 2005 bullshit.

First of all, I'd like to say, I've been doing some thinking and some reading, and none of us who don't own a house now will never be able to afford one. They say the market will go bust, because there are more houses out there than rich folk, but I think they forget that the richest can buy bunches of houses, own them all, and makes us all permanent renters. The only way out of the peasant class will be to see the world by joining the army for Bush. I just can't ship out to Iraq soon enough.

This is not a review of last year's Sam Raimi produced feature that we've all seen the preview for a thousand times, but hopefully avoided for real. As far as I can tell, that Boogeyman has nothing to do with this one.


Horror art sucks today. The new Sony DVD version of the 1980 classic vs. the original art on a poster I bought on ebay.
The Boogeyman, it rips off The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror so it probably was pretty much trashed by critics upon its release, but today it holds up for fans of the 70's and early 80's. Ulli Lommel, he's fallen from grace and makes shot on video movies today. Why? The Boogeyman was certainly a professional effort. It's got style, blood, John Carradine (a bit), and a bunch of memorable deaths, my favorite being the french-kissing-skewer death. This movie was a joy to watch.

Lommel's fall might, or at least should - if there is any justice, have something to do with the Boogeyman sequels. One of them is free on the new nicely priced DVD. It's Return of the Boogeyman or Boogeyman 3 and pissed me off to no end. Cub called it worse than "that island movie we saw...", she meant House of the Dead. Lommel is credited as co-producer. It's a shame. I'd say 80%, some estimate more - some less, of Return of the Boogeyman is footage from the original Boogeyman with poorly synced ominous music playing over it and terrible narration from a psychic in a trance describing in detail what is going on in the screen. It's like The Boogeyman with audio Cliff Notes for a two year olds - you can predict her next lines with astounding accuracy. The climax is the climax from The Boogeyman, with the annoying narration going on, and then that's it. Well, we get a bad final scare with the "man with no-face" appearing in her rearview mirror and then crappy video credits. Worse, they try to imply, with some nonsensical dialogue, that her vision of this shit going doing is what enabled the original survivors of The Boogeyman to make it, though she does not intervene in anyway. What a cheap way to attach importance to this nonsense. I watched some in fast forward and I was still yelling at the screen.

Oh yeah, they recap these Boogeyman recaps multiple times and in nonlinear order to really nail shit home.

The bathroom death in Return of the Boogeyman, the only new death shown (about a million times) and the only memorable sequence other than going into trances for flash back narration, is reportedly from another Lommel movie as well.

Boogeyman II, there is a DVD, I have not seen it, but the reviews of it are just as bad as the ones for Boogeyman 3. What do they say? They say it's a movie mainly made of footage from the original Boogeyman! To commit this same crime twice! Lommel is credited as director.

typical review 1:

I thought I was watching a special feature when I started this movie, and was surprised that it was the feature. This is not a sequel, this is one of the worst DVDs of all time. Thankfully, I only rented it and am only out the rental cost. Everybody, be warned, you barely see anything of the actual Boogeyman sequel, just scenes in fast motion. There should be some kind of law because this DVD is slickly packaged and is a complete and total rip-off. Everybody involved with the making of this DVD should feel ashamed. Those who bought it deserve their money back.

typical review 2:

All you need to know is that it is just a ripp off with old footage from the 1st movie.

DO NOT PURCHASE.

In Lommel's defense, word is that there is an actual Boogeyman II full movie (on tape? in theaters?) and that he hated it. People call this DVD Boogeyman Redux as it is a director's cut of The Boogeyman with the only salvageable scenes from Boogeyman II (some novel deaths) stuck into it. Confusing. More confusing, reportedly are the trailers included for other Boogeyman movies including Boogeyman 5 that is just footage from other Lommel sci-fi movies. Some wonder if the DVD is Lommel's joke on people that liked The Boogeyman series, a series that he himself hated to make. Who knows? I wanna know.