Boogeyman (2012 TV Movie)
8/10
Enjoyable if flawed Sci-Fi Channel creature effort
26 October 2015
When a series of strange deaths are apparent in a small town, the local authorities find them to be caused by a demon released that has a special connection to several of the residents and must stop its rampage before its target is found.

This was a decent overall entry as this wasn't one that really has a lot of bad points but not one that's really overflowing with positives either. One of the better features here is the enjoyable pace, as it's got some nice action scenes spread throughout with the different confrontations here with several high-energy scenes including the great attack on the old man, a generally enjoyable massacre on the kids in the forest and a later attack on a neighbor that gets some chilling stalking including along with the actual kill which is quite brutal. The film's two biggest scenes, though, come from the house ambush where the phone calls let them on to what's happening early on, the bedroom encounter is chilling and the different gun-battles here bring the action as well as some creepy stalking in the house's hallways gives this some better scenes, and the later encounter in the father's shack is really fun with the chaos and panic of the abduction serving as the launching point for the myriad of fine stalking scenes out in the woods picking off the members one-by-one in chilling encounters, the confrontation in the attic is highly enjoyable with a lot of action streaming throughout here and the influx of the storyline ramifications gives this one some even more fun here with how this impacts the action. While there's also some fun to be had with the creature's history and back-story, which is pretty clever and quite unique in and of itself because of what it signifies and how it's done here to link together both its appearance in the story as well as the connection to the human stories, it's got enough to really like here that gives this one some positive points against the film's big flaw. The problem here is basically a common grievance in having the one character who knows what's going on and how to stop it keep that information to themselves, forcing everyone else to deal with the situation without knowing what to do themselves. It's gradually apparent here that something's happening and there's little reason to think that would've been accepted and useful from what's happening, but rather it's all kept here that way instead. As well, the film's decision to handle the bullying aspect here is somewhat mishandled here as this spends quite a bit of time here setting it up only to drop it without really giving it any real purpose at all, since it doesn't really have any point in helping them overcome the creature, none of the bullying provides the strength to battle it later and the creature never gives them any kind of comeuppance or even accidental revenge as it just drops the thread altogether which makes such a questionable and controversial angle to have been included at all. Along with some usual atrocious CGI, these problems do affect it but overall it's pretty decent.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence, Language, Brief Nudity, strong themes of bullying and children-in-jeopardy.
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