The monster in the cupboard turns out to be real in this low-budget, low-quality horror from Sam Raimi's production house. Aimed firmly at the teen market, Boogeyman is light on gore and populated by pretty nobodies - the only name that flirts with celebrity is Lucy Lawless, and she spends the whole film locked in a flashback. A humourless trudge through haunted house clichés, it's unlikely to scare anyone old enough to get past the box office.
Our hero is Tim (Barry Watson), a traumatised blancmange of a man. As a kid, Tim saw his father killed by the Boogeyman, so he's grown up with a raging case of closet-o-phobia and his swanky flat is a marvel of modern open-fronted storage solutions. Watson plays this nonsense role with a face so straight you could use it to mark up shelves. When his mum dies, Tim has to go back to his hometown, where he's advised by a foolish shrink to "spend one night in the old house" and thus confront his demons.
"AN ENDLESS MONTAGE OF STUPIDITY"
From here on Boogeyman is an endless montage of stupidity. Tim walks slowly up and down stairs, peers intently at closed doors, backs away from mysterious shadows, bonds with spooky children, and generally behaves like a befuddled loon who's never seen a horror movie in his life. The Boogeyman, when he turns up, looks like a toasted Richard O'Brien from The Crystal Maze. Ooh, scary.
Boogeyman (2005)
