Film Review: Return of the Boogeyman (1994)

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SYNOPSIS:

A doctor and his oddball assistant try to help a young woman who is tormented by visions of murders being committed by the guy (who sort of looks like pro wrestler Alberto Del Rio) with the pantyhose on his head from the first movie.

REVIEW:

I really wasn’t that impressed with The Boogeyman to be quite honest with you (see my review for it on this site for more details) but it is a masterpiece compared to Return of the Boogeyman. This film is a train wreck from the very beginning and only gets worse as it chugs along. In addition to a silly (and almost non-existent) plot we get some horrible characters, bad acting, and about 600 tons of stock footage from the original movie. I don’t normally say this about most films, (unless they are some Hollywood turd that stars someone like Nicolas Cage or were written/directed/produced by Darren Lynn Bousman who ruins everything he touches) but Return of the Boogeyman is totally and completely pointless and has pretty much no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

The biggest problem that I had with this film was that over half of it is just stock footage from the original film. This was also done in the first sequel- Boogeyman II- and after seeing the exact same footage yet again for a third time I think I have had enough (especially since I didn’t really enjoy it the first time around). The filmmakers behind this turkey decided to shake things up a bit though and thought that they should give the characters shown in the stock footage different names and back stories for some unknown reason. I assume that they didn’t think that anyone would notice that the main character from the first movie (Lacey) now has a different name (Natalie) and is supposed to be a completely different character (even though is one of the many stock footage scenes we can clearly see Lacey’s brother shouting her name despite the fact that the sound is drowned out by a poorly dubbed voice over).

This movie is honestly made up of only about 45 minutes of new footage and the rest is just recycled scenes from the original film (I don’t know why I am complaining though since the new stuff is pretty bad and I should be thankful that there is very little of it). This is probably one of the laziest examples of film making that I have ever seen and I can just picture director Deland Nuse-who also claims to have written this film (all five minutes or so if it that wasn’t old footage)-telling the cast and crew not to worry about showing up to the shoot half the time because he was just going to use stock footage from the original film to pad out the running time.

Another huge issue the film has is the fact that the characters are terrible. I didn’t give a damn about a single one of them and didn’t care if any of them lived or died. We get a doctor (who nobody in his or her right mind would ever go to because he is obviously a quack) that spends most of his time literally scribbling on a piece of paper instead of trying to help his patient (I’m serious here, there is a scene where the camera catches what he is writing in his “notes” and it is just a bunch of scribbles with no words at all), our poor girl Annie who is suffering from visions of murders and spends much of the movie sleeping and making whining noises while she does so(though she is nice to look at which is one of the only positive things I can say about this movie), and the doctor’s assistant (who just shows up on the doctor’s doorstep one day and immediately becomes his assistant) who apparently only has one pair of clothes as he only wears one outfit for the duration of the film). Needless to say, if you are looking for a flick that serves up some realistic, likable characters that make the movie more enjoyable then you really need to look elsewhere.

Return of the Boogeyman is a terrible film and should pretty much be avoided at all cost. It is so bad that even making MST3K-like comments while watching it doesn’t make it enjoyable. Unless you are a glutton for punishment who enjoys movies with terrible acting, no plot, horrible characters, and dialogue that is virtually impossible to hear at times (could they not afford a boom mike?) then you should skip this one. Trust me when I say there is absolutely no reason to watch it.

Return of the Boogeyman (1994)