Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Stephanie
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
Roxie
The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Python Hyena
The Boogeyman (2005): Dir: Stephen Kay / Cast: Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel, Tory Mussett, Skye McCole Bartusiak, Tory Mussett: Surprisingly effective horror film regarding our old childhood fears. Barry Watson is tormented with memories of his father being sucked into the closet, and the inability of his mother in handling it. He fears the closet yet realizes that the only way he can deal with it is to face it. After his mother's funeral he decides to stay a night at his battered childhood home. Holds strong until the conclusion where certain questions are not addressed and silliness takes its toll. Director Stephen Kay plays off one's fears. He previously made the embarrassing Get Carter remake but here he deals with a subject that horror fans may find juvenile yet it locks into a very juvenile fear. Watson holds his own as someone traumatized since his youth by this bizarre creature. Emily Deschanel plays an ex-girlfriend whom he feels is a target. Tory Mussett plays the current girlfriend who attempts to take his mind off of the ordeal by going to a hotel. Unfortunately this leads to dire circumstances in a bathtub. Skye McCole Bartusiak plays a mysterious young girl who seemingly has connections to Watson's past. Tory Mussett plays another mysterious female whom Watson has not met yet she figures in. Although silly it does play off the Boogeyman theme effectively. Score: 8 / 10
bashfulbadger
In this, the delectable Barry Watson has grown up into a big old scaredy cat after a childhood encounter with the titular character, who he believes he saw snatch his Dad and drag him into a bedroom closet. Our sympathetic lead is frightened of his own shadow and subjected to a myriad of spooky goings on that would have many a more stalwart hero cowering under the bed. In a neat inversion of the stereotypical paedophile scenario, he's a man in an overcoat pursued by an unknown prepubescent girl (Skye McCole Bartusiak), nervously confronting and challenging her: 'Why are you following me around?'The shocks come fast and furious; the acting is convincing; and the denouement, criticised by many reviewers, surprisingly satisfying. I think this deserves way more than 4.1, even though we don't have the boogeyman back here in the Old World.
tapio_hietamaki
Tim (Barry Watson, known from daytime-TV soap operas) is a man in his twenties who never got over his childhood fear of closets. From this ridiculous starting point stems a horror movie so bad it feels like the viewers are ripped off. Tim is an irritatingly incompetent protagonist, the dialog is horrible, the cinematography is clichéd and induces headache, there is no story at all and the scary scenes aren't even scary.The film's only redeeming quality might be Emily Deschanel, who's nice to look at and an adept actress, but she has very little screen time and no function in the story whatsoever. More time is devoted to cutting to Instagram-filtered shots of walls with spooky writing on them or some bushes rattling in the dark.There is some really bad CGI, too. I can't fathom why this got two sequels.
Toronto85
Boogeyman begins at night time with a little boy in bed afraid of things in the dark, which most kids are. His father comes in and to humour him, checks around the room to make sure "the boogeyman" isn't in there. However, when the man enters the closet he is pulled in by something and the door is slammed shut. Flash forward fifteen years, and the little boy Tim is now an adult (played by Barry Watson) with a pretty normal life, but still with his fear of the boogeyman after seeing what happened to his father. Despite him seeing his father pulled into the closet by something, everyone's been trying to convince him over the years that he imagined the whole thing and that his father left him and his mother one night. Anyways, After finding out that his mother died, Tim decides to spend a night in his old family house where the incident years ago took place. It isn't long before Tim starts to see things happening around the creepy old house. He witnesses doors creak open by themselves, things in the dark that aren't really there, and himself as a little boy roaming around the place. He then has visions of all the children that the boogeyman has supposedly taken over the years. The boogeyman is quickly shown to be an actual supernatural being with the ability to hurt people. He kills Tim's girlfriend and uncle before attacking him and Kate (a childhood friend of Tim's). Eventually Tim realizes that to kill the boogeyman, he has to face him. He does that sending the boogeyman into the closet which has turned into some whirlwind vortex or something. I don't know...The boogeyman had promise and I was really looking forward to seeing it when it came out in 2005. However, the plot is too all over the place and has some really big holes missing from the story. If the boogeyman was just a supernatural "thing" that affected only Tim and his childhood, how was it able to murder his girlfriend and uncle? And then there are the scenes in which Tim goes through a closet door at a motel and end up back at his old house, sort of like a portal. It's just too all over the place at times. Acting isn't bad, it's pretty much all Barry Watson as we see his character confront his fears. Oh and the ending is pathetic. Won't get into it, but it's just so rushed and a little cheesy.If they had just stuck to a more simple plan when creating Boogeyman, it could have been a frightening horror film. They took it to a high level of fantasy and supernaturalism that just made the whole movie lack in the horror/scary department. And that is what the boogeyman is supposed to be; scary. It has its cool moments, but overall isn't what it could and should have been.5/10
