Boogeyman II (1983)

Writer/director Ulli Lommel is nowadays a very notorious and even quite hated individual because he unleashes multiple downright insufferable straight-to-video horror stinkers on the market every single year, but there once was a time when he was a promising filmmaker. In the very earliest phase of his career he made the near-brilliant "The Tenderness of Wolves" and throughout the early eighties he made a handful of inferior but highly amusing horror movies, like "Brain Waves", "The Devonsville Terror" and "The Boogeyman". That last one is definitely a minor 80's classic. The story is pure hokum, but the film is full of absurdly grotesque murder sequences and extreme gore. Ulli Lommel and his buddies must have been so proud on their accomplishment that they decided to re-use all the best footage to fill up almost three quarters of the sequel. Yes, you read that right: "Boogeyman II" is stuffed like a Christmas turkey with key footage of the original, and that's the main reason why it receives so many negative reviews around here. Personally I didn't mind all that much, because it's been a couple of years since I watched it. This way, I get to re-watch all the fun parts (like that awesome mouth-to-mouth impalement sequence) without having to sit through the dull parts. Part two takes place in Hollywood, where survivor Lacey is staying with friends to recover from her trauma. Through long and extremely detailed flashbacks, Lacey tells the story about the murderous spirit in the little piece of mirror to befriended actress and her husband director (played by Ulli Lommel himself, with his atrocious German accent). Naturally they want to exploit Lacey's bizarre thriller story and turn it into a horror movie, but then the Boogeyman returns to kill them all during a typical Hollywood pool party. "Boogeyman II" is 50 minutes of stock footage and 25 minutes of non-stop new murders. The new massacres are very lame in comparison with those of the original, though. Death by electric toothbrush and suffocation in shaving gel, for example. The film still got included in the infamous list of video nasties, but only because of the stock footage of the original and not because of the ridiculous new murder set pieces.

If there was ever a film that didn't need a sequel, it was Ulli Lommel's The Bogey Man. This follow-up would have been more understandable if it were a personal project from the same director, but for some reason; someone called Bruce Starr has taken up the reigns (I neither know, or care, the reasons for this. Or if Bruce Starr is a Ulli Lommel pseudonym). Well...he sort of has, as this film is at least half a retread of the first film with direct 'flashback' scenes making up a large proportion of the runtime. The plot this time focuses on some people in Hollywood who want to make a film based on the events of the first Bogey Man film (groan), this gives Brucey Starr an opportunity to stick a load of scenes from the original together with the stuff he directed. The main problem with The Revenge of the Bogey Man is that it's mind numbingly boring! I have to admit that even though it was merely a couple of months ago when I saw the first film, I can't remember most of it - and even that didn't stop the film being completely boring. The idea of a killer coming out of a mirror is more silly than frightening anyway, and while it doesn't surprise me that this film ended up on the DPP Video Nasty list, as the first one did and this is essentially the same film; I for one wish it didn't because then I wouldn't have seen it. Recommended? Nope!

The version of Boogeyman II I will be commenting on is the 'Director's Cut' entitled Boogeyman Redux on screen & released on DVD which has newly shot on video footage inserted into a an absolute mess of clips form the first two Boogeyman films. Boogeyman Redux starts with some footage from Boogeyman (1980) & then cuts to Mickey Lombard (Ulli Lommel) in shades & a baseball cap sitting at a table being filmed presumably by the police as he is read his rights after being charged with murder. Art film director Lombard begins to tell his story, a story that began 22 years ago when a woman came to him & told him a strange story about some killing committed by the boogeyman & that he should make a film about them. Boogeyman Redux is then just sequence after sequence of footage from the original Boogeyman, huge chunks of it are used & probably account for 90% of Boogeyman Redux's running time. The remaining 10% is interview footage with Lombard as he bridges the chunks together & annoyingly there is footage taken from Boogeyman II (1983) which for some reason Lommel has decided to speed up & replace the soundtrack with an awful electronic score, once all the good scenes from the original Boogeyman are used Boogeyman Redux ends. Directed by Ulli Lommel this has to be one of the worst films ever, please bear in mind that I'm referring to the 'Director's Cut' DVD version & NOT the Boogeyman II I thought I was getting. In fact I have seen the original cut of Boogeyman II years ago & I would be interested in comparing the two. Basically just about the entire film is footage from Boogeyman with a few sections cut out, it's like it was cut down for an hour TV time-slot with some of the more boring exposition scenes cut out & the Lombard interview scenes in place of the commercials as they're about as entertaining & useful. The sped up footage from Boogeman II is worthless & the bits with Lommel as Lombard being interrogated by the police are obviously shot on video & look out of place & as tacked on as they surely were. The abomination I just finished watching is an absolute travesty that I still can't quite believe. Why didn't they just keep Boogeyman II as it was & release that? It's been a long time since I watched it last but I remember it being a hell of a lot better than this pile of donkey crap. There really isn't much else to say except just watch the original Boogeyman instead, it's virtually the same as this just without the annoying Lommel popping up every 10 or 15 minutes & doesn't have the frustrating sped up footage from Boogeyman II, this is a complete mess of a film & I hated it. Definitely one to avoid, trust me you'll be glad you did. In fact Boogeyman Redux is so bad I'd walk out on it on an aeroplane.

Awful sequel to chiller with the story relying too heavily on flashback to tell a story that never develops fully into something coherent or interesting.