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Boogeyman By David DiCerto Catholic News Service NEW YORK (CNS) -- In the hokey horror flick "The Boogeyman" (Screen Gems), Barry Watson plays Tim, a troubled young man who has been tormented all his life by memories of a traumatic event he "witnessed" in his bedroom as a boy. The way he remembers it, his father (Charles Mesure) was snatched into his closet by the evil hobgoblin of the movie's title. This terrifying episode -- the film's first and best scene -- has left Tim deathly afraid of closets and explains the movie's tedious close-ups of doorknobs and hinges. The rational voices in Tim's life -- including his girlfriend (Tory Mussett), and his childhood sweetheart (Emily Deschanel) -- suggest that perhaps the incident was his young mind's way of dealing with unresolved emotions over his father abandoning both him and his mother (played in a brief cameo by Lucy Lawless). But Tim -- and the audience -- knows better. In a sanity-salvaging move, his psychologist (Robyn Malcolm) suggests that, while back home to attend his mother's funeral, Tim spend a night alone in the creepy house in which he grew up, in order to prove to himself that the ghosts that have haunted him are nothing more than figments of his imagination. Bad move. Though not completely without some suspense and popcorn-tossing jolts, "Boogeyman" (no connection to the 1980 film) is a muddled mess of failed frights, horror-movie cliches and late-coming special effects pieced together by a mostly incoherent screenplay. At one point, Tim explains a trick his father taught him about overcoming fears: If you want something bad to go away, "close your eyes and count to five" and presumably, when you open your eyes it will be gone. Would that it worked for bad films as well. The film contains several sequences of menace, which involve horror-style violence, as well as a few sexually suggestive scenes, one which contains partial nudity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents are strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. - - - DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. END Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed. CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250 |
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