Someone needs to inform this new generation of filmmakers working with higher quality film and those using digital cameras that their blood is looking like strawberry syrup. Nothing takes the fun out of a cheap B horror movie than shitty blood. That’s just one of the problems Boogeyman 3 has to deal with, as it tries mustering up the scares to make renting or purchasing this new DVD sequel worth your while. I guess I was spoiled in my youth watching the masters of contemporary horror films like John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper and George Romero. As a child, I knew that even if I was about to watch one of their lesser films like The People Under the Stairs or Prince of Darkness, I was still going to get spooked to hell. Boogeyman 3 couldn’t manage one scare for me in its entire 94 minutes; what I was left watching was a cliché-ridden slasher movie with more of the same jerky editing that has become the norm in modern horror movies.
Boogeyman 3 stars Erin Cahil as sophomore college student, Sarah Morris. Sarah’s best friend, Jennifer, returns home from burying her father. She is carrying his old journal which details the existence of the actual Boogeyman. Jennifer insists that the Boogeyman has followed her to college in order to kill her. Sarah witnesses Jennifer die at the hands of the supernatural killer only to be told it was a suicide. However, as Sarah begins to believe in the existence of the Boogeyman, it sets into motion a series of horrific events. As she tries to convince the rest of her dorm that the Boogeyman does exist, the evil force grows stronger and her friends begin to pay the price. As the film progresses, elements of films like Friday the 13th, Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street show up throughout the story. Since the script is so unoriginal, it must rely on the scares and the gore to entertain.
Look, I know that with a limited budget and a short shooting schedule, a director is confined to the script that has been plopped in his lap. Most of the time on these low budget horror movies, the director doesn’t have much prep time and he assumes things can be tweaked on set. This rarely happens. However, even with a crappy script, there should still be room for tons of scares if the movie is planned out. That does not appear to be the case here. Furthermore, I couldn’t get over how bad the special gore effects were. Perhaps the makeup FX team was so caught up in creating the prosthetics for the Boogeyman character that they ran out of time to create a good appliance for a kid getting his faced impaled by a water bong or another kid getting chopped to pieces in the blade of an air vent fan. If you’re not going to offer up any startles and screams, at least show us some carnage. The closest we get is an open body cavity with some intestines. But then, the scene is so dark, you don’t get the full gore effect. And this is a horror movie? Come on!
Obviously there is an audience for a movie like Boogeyman 3 — it’s the third movie in the series, after all — but for me, in the future, I’ll know better than to watch anything from the folks at Ghost House (a Sam Raimi company, go figure) and I’ll certainly stay away from anything with Boogeyman in the title.
Boogeyman 3 (Sony) is available for purchase at Amazon.
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