Revenge of the Boogeyman

Whoever made the trailer deserves a raise because I was completely hoodwinked into watching this movie. The preview for Revenge of the Boogeyman promises endless suspense, a myriad of fun kills, and a legend to discover. The film itself is an awkwardly acted and fairly boring drug-use PSA.

As a disclaimer, there are a LOT of horror movies called something like “Return of the Boogeyman,” “Attack of the Boogeyman”, or “Boogeyman 2: Electric Boogaloo.” This review is about Director Erik Skybak’s 2025 outing, though I am more than willing to create a tier list of boogeyman movies, for science.

Revenge of the Boogeyman takes places at a remote cabin in Ridgefield, where a sinister being haunts the forest. At least, I think he does. We only hear the legend of the boogeyman for about four seconds in one conversation, and we never learn anything else about it. What we do hear a lot about instead is main character Calvin’s (Calvin McCarthy) struggle to stay sober while on a weekend getaway with his friends Tim (Tim Coyle) and Jax (Jax Kellington).

The trouble for this movie starts as soon as the dialogue does. After a completely unrelated cold open, we are introduced to Erik (Erik Skybak) in his house as he prepares to leave for work. He’s dismissive to his wife and has a strange encounter with his son about the boogeyman before heading off to pick up his affair partner. Despite this problem-oriented set-up, you shouldn’t get attached to Erik’s family because they just aren’t in the movie anymore. Similarly, I hope you don’t think Erik’s girlfriend Naomi is important, because she exits the story almost immediately and no one seems to notice. After about 20 minutes of suffering through Erik’s on-screen lack of presence, he too wanders off into the woods and ceases to matter at all.

Lest you think your suffering is over, the three main characters are even worse. Perhaps distracted by the temptation to insert horror movie joke tropes and boogeyman kills, the filmmakers forgot to make any of the characters the least bit likeable. And I can understand that as a conceptual choice, but a film still needs to be enjoyable to watch.

For instance, Calvin does most of the talking and most of what he says is yelling threats, shouting lies, and drinking drain cleaner. Every time he was alone, I was hoping the boogeyman would kill him, but alas he is the actual main character.

So far, I sound like a hater. And I am. However, I do understand what the director was trying to do. There are attempts at humor scattered across the film: stoners in the woods, satirical sex scenes, etc. Unfortunately, the movie just isn’t funny. The reason the humor falls flat is all the characters are just really garbage people or exist solely as foils for other characters to be jerks. Other films that intentionally play with horror tropes to absurdity, like Lake Placid (1999), The Cabin in the Woods (2013) or the Scary Movie franchise all have something in common: there’s a genuine cause or character in the movie you want to root for. Even if said character is a giant freaking alligator. But in Revenge of the Boogeyman, we can’t even root for the boogeyman because we hardly get to see him.

Instead, we spend a lot of time on ‘drugs are bad’ as we watch Calvin search for beer, search for drugs, search for mouthwash, search for pills, smoke cigarettes, drink cleaner. Have conversations about how he’s a fuck-up, fuck up anyway, learn nothing. We get it.

Now this isn’t to say a ‘don’t do drugs’ horror plot can’t be fun. If you’ve also accidentally watched Revenge of the Boogeyman, consider The Intruder (1989) as a palate cleanser. It’s a delightfully bloody romp through a supermarket where a crazed killer uses all manner of grocery store accoutrements to attack the night staff. It’s chock of full ‘80s hair, horror tropes, and the practical effects we all know and love. But back to the boogeyman.

The scenes where no one is dying are virtually unwatchable. A scene of the main characters playing bocce ball reminded me of that feeling in school when you’ve finished your exam but aren’t allowed to leave the room. Even where jokes enter the script, the writers forgot about the audience. For instance, multiple times the film does the ‘they are screaming during sex ha ha it is so loud ha ha’ joke, but they don’t take pity on the audience at all and keep replaying the screaming at us, not just the tortured characters in the movie.

Despite all of this, Jason Brooks does a good job as the actual boogeyman. His costuming and character choices are effective, even if the actors he’s killing forgot screaming is an option in a horror movie. Similarly, there is some effective non-diegetic sound work here, noticeably with some good music in the soundtrack.

Overall, it’s one star for the boogeyman, ½ star for a reasonably effective score, and ½ star to the rest of the production for trying. That makes 2 stars for Revenge of the Boogeyman. Do yourself a favor and just watch the trailer.