Director
Jeff Betancourt
Cast
Danielle Savre………Laura Porter
Matthew Cohen………Henry
David Gallagher………Mark
Mae Whitman………Alison
Renee O’Connor………Dr. Jessica Ryan
Tobin Bell………Dr. Mitchell Allen
DVD Release Date: January 8, 2008
Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 93 Minutes
The Movie
As children, Laura and Henry Porter watched the boogeyman murder their parents. It was looked upon as an intruder who was never found, but ten years later the siblings are still receiving therapy. But Henry, the worse of the two, has now been released with good mental health and Laura is all ready for them to spend more time together. Henry on the other hand wants to starts his life up and has a job interview with possible relocation to San Francisco. Laura on the other hand now starts becoming worse off with her recurring thoughts of the boogeyman.
To keep Laura safe while Henry goes away for his interview, they check her into the safe mental ward Henry recently got out of. There she meets up with Doctors Mitchell Allen and Jessica Ryan along with some of the other patients who knew Henry. In group therapy, Laura discusses the boogeyman which ends up getting her laughed at and causes her to call Henry so he’ll come back home directly after his interview. But that may be too late as everyone starts dying one by one and the boogeyman seems like the most likely culprit.
There is just so much wrong with this film that it’s ridiculous although it does happen to hold a few decent qualities. Right off the bat let me say that they tried way too hard in making sure that “Tobin Bell of Saw” was their selling point. The cover of the DVD says it, the trailer says it, and they even include an homage to Saw throughout the flick. Bell’s character carries around a portable mini tape recorder. I know he’s a shrink, but the other one (Dr. Ryan) didn’t have one. They even use it as a killing tool later on in the film. Check out plenty of the kill scenes too and it will remind you way too much of Jigsaw’s work.
Yes, this is a direct-to-DVD sequel and it is supposed to be crappy horror, but it worked overtime at doing that too. Every single stereotypical no-no in the horror world is played out here. Someone asks “whose there?” when a sound is heard. The gang decides to split up and search the place. One couple has sex randomly in the middle of people dying left and right. The patients are being killed off by way of their fears. Oh how original that is. Let’s throw in a villain that isn’t scary whatsoever and doesn’t fit the bill as a supernatural being either. I mean why the hell would the boogeyman use a knife to kill his victims?
While there is so much wrong with Boogeyman 2, there are a few things it happened to do right. Besides the gore and usual jump scares, it had some nice continuity factors that made for sweet little touches. The main character of Tim Jensen from the first film is mentioned in a small newspaper article found in Dr. Mitchell Allen’s office. It is the only connection to the first film you’ll find too. At one point a character talks about how she watched her mother in a mental ward as a child and saw her turn into a mumbling vegetable after shock therapy. Later on that character was electrocuted and found staring and mumbling. I thought it was a nice touch.
Besides those ever awe-inspiring moments, you’re not going to find much to enjoy here. A few interesting kills round out any and everything that will possibly entertain you in a film that just never should have been made. I’ve said it before in some of my reviews that a horror film does a good job if you end up truly caring for the characters so that when they die, you feel it inside you. It’s not a good sign if you wait for the main character to die so badly that you get pissed off every time someone else bites it before her.
The Video
The film is shown in 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and also has an option to watch it in 1.33 Full Screen format. Either way it looks pretty good with bright coloring in the blood which is about the only time you won’t see something in a drab or dark color. As for the darker scenes (almost the entire film); some of them ended up being too dark and making the background images hard to make out.
The Audio
The film is heard in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and comes through just fine with some of the jump-scare, loud noise moments being a bit too loud. They don’t last more then a second and I guess are doing their job in making you jump, but it’s annoying.
Special Features
Audio Commentaries – There are two commentary tracks included on the DVD. The first is with director Jeff Betancourt and writer Brian Sieve and it kind of seems like a dual interview. They ask each other questions back and forth and then ramble on for ten to fifteen minutes. Then they verbally pat each other on the back constantly. Instead of just talking about the film they worked together on; they proceed to act as if they’ve never met one another and want to know more about the work they’ve done.
The second commentary is with actors Tobin Bell (of Saw) and Danielle Savre who are joined by producers Gary Bryman and Steve Hein. This commentary is more enjoyable because they not only talk about the film and what is going on, but they make funny little comments or joke around with each other. The one downside here is that there are a lot of times when there’s complete silence and no one’s saying a word. It’s still better then the “you interview me, I’ll interview you” commentary with Betancourt and Sieve.
Bringing Fear To Life – This is an incredibly lame feature that lasts almost five minutes. It shows storyboards from the film depicting the different kill scenes and then shows them in still frame shots as they finally appeared. Not a word is spoken and it’s set to music.
Theatrical Trailer
Trailers – Resident Evil: Extinction, Dragon Wars, Zombie Strippers, 30 Days Of Night, Black Water, Gabriel, Southland Tales, Rise: Blood Hunter, and Fearnet.com
The Inside Pulse
If you didn’t like the first film, then you probably won’t like this one either. Hell, my girlfriend had never even seen Boogeyman and she didn’t like this one because it’s not necessary to see one in order to understand the other. If you’re looking for the enjoyable films that this one tried to be then I recommend checking out any of those in the Saw franchise. Trust me it will be time much better spent. I feel rather bad giving it much credit, but it really does give some disturbing visuals at the beginning of the film and then in a few death scenes. Still that isn’t worth spending money to buy or rent the DVD. The special features are virtually useless especially considering they give you two commentaries to sit through when you’ll be sick of the film after viewing it once let alone three times. The acting is bad, the scares are generic, and the plotholes are of Grand Canyon proportion but it does have “Tobin Bell of Saw.” {GASP! SHOCK!}
