(1980)
Director: Ulli Lommel
Writers: Ulli Lommel, David Hershell, Suzanna Love
Ulli Lommel is a hack.
That being said, let's move on to the film itself; The Boogeyman. The Boogeyman is a mess. The plot essentially concerns a mirror possessed by the spirit of a man with pantyhose on his head (the titular boogeyman, I suppose) who seeks revenge on the now-grown children who conspired to murder him while he was making love to their drunken mother. Or maybe he just wants to kill people. I don't know. It's hard to make too much sense out of this movie. Anyway, a broken shard of the mirror glows, people die, there's some supernatural mumbo-jumbo concerning a priest near the end. The Boogeyman is a movie I've seen before and though I didn't fondly remember it, it gained a little bit of merit simply because I viewed it on the same night that I watched the much superior Sleepaway Camp for the first time. As much as I dislike this film though, I have to admit that it contains a scene that is quite possibly the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've ever seen in a horror movie:
Seriously, I must have rewound and watched that part at least twenty times the first time I saw it. PURE. CINEMA. GOLD. To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure why this film made the video nasties list. It's ridiculous and it's bad. I suppose that it is also a bit gory, but not excessively so.
Okay, let's talk about Ulli Lommel for a moment. To be fair, I probably have not seen enough of his films to judge him fairly. I've seen The Boogeyman (which I honestly hope is not his finest work) and a few of the seemingly endless serial killer biopics that he's recently been pumping out (Zodiac Killer, BTK Killer, Green River Killer, DC Sniper... seriously, the list goes on and on). I want to believe that Ulli Lommel is capable of better because as bad a movie as this is, there is just a hint of actual talent shining through. There are more than a few shots that really look kind of cool and most of the murder set pieces are actually quite good. Like another infamous German director *cough*Uwe Boll*cough*, Ulli Lommel is well known for making unforgivably horrible movies. The main difference though, is that Ulli Lommel has made a lot more horrible movies. I so badly want for him to prove me wrong but until that happens, when I see his name in the credits, I will look to the sky, raise my fists, and curse his name; "ULLI LOMMEL!!"
By the way, I'm really NOT looking forward to watching Return Of The Boogeyman.
Enjoyability: 2 1/2 out of 12 beers
