THE BOOGEYMAN

Young Willy and his sister Lacy spy on their drunken mother (Gillian Gordon) as she cavorts with her lover one night. When they’re spotted, the lover – now wearing his woman’s discarded stockings over his face – ties Willy to his bedposts as punishment. Lacy, however, sneaks in a short while later and frees Willy – enabling him to creep into his mother’s boudoir and stab her lover to death. The whole bloody incident is overviewed by an old mirror on the wall …

Years later, Lacy (Suzanne Love) and Willy (Nicholas Love) are now adults and living with Lacy’s husband Jake (Ron James) on a farmhouse. They’ve relocated there to be with their Aunt and Uncle, having not seen their mother since that fateful night.

But events have not been forgotten. On the contrary, Willy has never uttered a word since (and has taken to wearing frankly hideous dungarees) while Lacy is tormented by recurring dreams in which the lover (Howard Grant) returns to tie her to bedposts and threaten her with a phallic knife.

Eventually, drippy Jake decides to get professional help for Lacy. So he hires the services of Dr Warren (John Carradine), possibly the only psychiatrist in the whole of rural America more likely to increase nightmares than quell them.

Anyway, Warren agrees with Jake’s suggestion that Lacy should pay a visit to her mother’s old house and put her demons to sleep for good. After all, there’s now a new family living there … what could go wrong?

Well, she COULD turn up, freak out, break the mirror which still hangs in the house to this day, and thereby release the lover’s vengeful spirit in the process …

Having worked as a protégé of acclaimed German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder from the late 60s and collaborated with Andy Warhol in the 70s, Ulli Lommel came into his own with his third solo directorial effort, 1973’s excellent TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES. It remains to this day one of the most powerful and haunting of contemporary German horror films.

But then, Lommel moved to America (subsequently marrying Suzanna Love) and failed to capitalise upon the critical acclaim that film had brought him. By the end of the 1970s, Lommel was still working but was very much ‘under the radar’ in terms of world cinema attention. He did what anyone with half an eye towards making a buck would do: prepared to make a low budget horror film.

And this, THE BOOGEYMAN (not to be confused with the unrelated 2005 Sam Raimi-produced stinker), was the end result. A cheap ($300,000 estimated budget) horror thriller dogged by ropy performances and FX work that doesn’t achieve what you can tell it’s meant to, but one which endures to this day thanks to its good points outweighing the bad.

Clearly influenced by the supernatural leanings of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR and THE OMEN, Lommel’s screenplay (co-written with Love and David Herschel) focuses more on malevolent spirits and the possession of inanimate objects as a means to its horror set-pieces, rather than adhere to the slasher conventions familiar with films of its kin at the time.

It makes for an imaginative addition to the early 80s American horror cycle, with a slow but measured build-up which allows for character development before settling into a satisfyingly steady flow of creative kill scenes during the final 40 minutes.

Carradine’s always good value for money and hams it reliably here, while the real-life brother-sister teaming of the Loves makes for interesting viewing. A religious theme is kept peripheral but does at least allow for a half-baked exorcism of minor visual success towards the end, and the gore – while tame by today’s torture-porn standards – was enough to ensure the film was removed from UK video store shelves during the "nasties" debacle of the mid-80s (scissors, screwdrivers and pitchforks through necks – that kind of thing).

But yes, the film can’t help but feel as cheap as it is. The limited setting, inexperienced cast and rudimentary FX work are unlikely to wash with today’s audiences. However, Lommel has a keen eye for his Maryland shooting locations, while Tim Krog's score is beneficially insidious in an agreeable of-its-era electro style.

CMV Laservision’s blu-ray disc is region B friendly, so will play on UK and European BD players. It also comes with a bonus CD disc which contains the film’s original score.

The blu-ray boasts an uncut print of the film, presented as an MPEG4-AVC file in full 1080p HD resolution. The original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 has been adhered to and is, of course, enhanced for 16x9 televisions.

The proffered transfer is a surprisingly clean affair, exhibiting little in the way of onscreen debris. The odd speck here and there in the film’s early stages soon disappear entirely, leaving us with a smooth and rich presentation which stands easily as the film’s best domestic representation to date.

Colours are rich and deep, adding newfound clarity and atmosphere to key scenes such as the spooky opening sequence and the climactic showdown. For the first time, the production looks a lot more professional and film-like. Detail is also increased noticeably, while the added depth to exterior scenes impresses on regular occasions.

A light sheen of grain throughout suggests against any overly heavy use of noise reduction. Although some day scenes do look a tad blown out on occasion, these seem to be more inherent of the materials used. As the back cover boasts, this is a new HD master from an original negative.

Audio is provided in English and German options, both of which offer 2.0 DTS-HD mixes. Unsurprisingly, I went for the former. No complaints here: the disc serves up a clean and consistent audio track, evenly balanced and spacious where it needs to be.

The disc opens with a static main menu page. From there, we get sub-menus including a scene-selection menu allowing access to the film via 12 chapters. Joining a very small club of similar blu-ray discs (the only one that springs immediately to mind is Severin’s release of HORROR EXPRESS), these menus do not ‘pop up’ as you’d expect.

Extras begin with a feature-length commentary track from Lommel. Unfortunately this is conducted in German, so I can’t really speak of its entertainment value.

An 18-minute video interview with the director follows. This is in English (with optional German subtitles). It’s a meaty bonus feature in its own right, although Lommel is perhaps the most reluctant interviewee in recent memory. Honestly, he looks like someone off-screen has his family held at gunpoint and he’s being forced to speak about THE BOOGEYMAN to save them from execution. Consequently, it’s bizarrely compelling.

The original US theatrical trailer is also English-friendly (and in decent nick), while the German one – you guessed it – isn’t.

A poster and still gallery also features, as do German language trailers for INTRUDER and ALIEN 2 ON EARTH.

As mentioned above, a bonus CD soundtrack is also provided. This is a great addition; something that I wish distributors would think about doing more often.

The blu-ray and bonus CD are housed in an attractive media-book style packaging (the same style and size as those UK Studio Canal Collection blus – BELLE DE JOUR, THE DEER HUNTER etc). This release comes in a choice of three covers, the best of which reproduces the original US theatrical poster art.

THE BOOGEYMAN is a great little slice of nostalgia from a time when horror filmmakers working on a miniscule budget weren’t afraid to go for originality and ambience over gore for gore’s sake.

It’s not perfect, but its technical merits are certainly amplified by CMV’s impressive blu-ray presentation.

Recommended.

Review by Stuart Willis