Boogeyman II

Under interrogation from the police, art-house film-maker turned horror director Mickey Lombard (Ulli Lommel) gives his account of the events that have resulted in his arrest for a series of grisly murders.

In the mid 80s, UK horror fans were treated with utter contempt by the BBFC when the organisation saw fit to draw up a list of films they deemed unsuitable for public viewing due to their graphic nature—a list which included several films that are now recognised as classics of the genre. To make matters even worse, this 'video nasty' list also included certain titles that were indisputably complete and utter garbage. Years later, horror fans who actively seek out all of the official 'nasty' titles for the sake of completion can find themselves playing a game of horror movie Russian roulette.

One video nasty that is most definitely the movie equivalent of a loaded chamber is Ulli Lommell's Boogeyman II (AKA Revenge of the Boogeyman), an absolutely dire snooze-fest that almost makes taking a bullet to the brain seem like the preferable option (it would certainly involve a lot less suffering). Consisting primarily of regurgitated footage from the first film, plus a few additional scenes starring the director himself and some risible supernatural killings (including death by electric toothbrush!?!), Boogeyman II makes most of the other nasties look like classics in comparison (so perhaps it's not an entirely worthless flick after all).

So bad is the film, in fact, that it has been suggested by some (including Lommell himself, unsurprisingly) that the whole thing was a massive two fingers up to the film industry by a disgruntled director unable to receive funding for anything but horror films. If this was the case, then I guess Lommell succeeded: his film is a joyless experience from start to finish, one which must have had his investors seething with rage.

Incredibly, twenty years after its initial release, director Lommell issued a re-edited 'Redux' version intended to finally realise his original vision. If anything, this cut is even worse than the first one.

This is more flashbacks of the first "Boogeyman" movie than anything else (literally %75 of this film), and what it dosen't rip off is boring, cheap garbage. In fact the best thing I can say about it is that it isn't quite as bad as the next sequel, "Return of the Boogeyman", which is only surpassed by maybe "Plan 9 from Outer Space" or perhaps a test pattern. Rub your eyes real hard, its more entertaining than watching this one.

Made in 1982, "Boogeyman II" is an unsuccessful followup to Ulli Lommel's 1980 horror hit. Carrying sequelitis to a distressing extreme, about half the current picture's running time consists of flashback highlights from the earlier film, amounting to virtually a condensed version. Small wonder that, in common with many other marginal films of late, the pic had no theatrical release but has gone instead directly into the home video market.

Uncredited screenplay is built around the first film's heroine Lacey (Suzanna Love) moving from Maryland to L. A. six months after the supernatural murders recounted in part 1. Much of the pic's early reels consists of flashback material as she tells her story to friends and film director Mickey Lombard (Ulli Lommel).

Beyond recapitulation of already-released footage, "Boogeyman II" is a vehicle for expatriate German filmmaker Uli Lommel to express his misgivings about the Hollywood scene. Recalling (no doubt unintentionally) the theme of an unsung little film-about-films "The Other Woman" by the Czech actor-director Hugo Haas, the picture has Lommel (under protest) shooting some skin shots to spice up his current art film entitled "Nathalie and the Age of Diminishing Expectations". His producer has already retitled the epic "Kiss and Tell".

As Haas did 30 years ago, Lommel (in character) sounds off about the commercial vicissitudes of filmmaking. Thumbing through a copy of Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon", he spots a photo of Erich von Strohim and comments cynically about the "good old days when Hollywood destroyed real people instead of toys". Regarding spiralling costs and waste, once again the target is a familiar one, as Lommel's agent expresses the low-budget filmer's refrain: "Brian De Palma spent $18,000,000 on that bomb of his "Blow Out", you could make 50 movies for that".

Amidst this griping, the lethal mirror shard brought along from ""Boogeyman" by Lacey goes on the rampage again, possessing the butler Joseph (Sholto von Douglass). With extremely cheap blood and gore effects, various household objects are supernaturally levitaged and used to kill off the greepy guests at a Hollywood party. Besides a garden hose, hedge-clipper, corkscrew and barbecue tongs, the appliances employed in this weak spoof of the "Power tools of death" horror genre extend to an electric toothbrush and even a girl smothered by shaving cream. It's a feeble exercise in black humor, right up through the inevitable graveside ending (ripped off from De Palma's "Carrie").

My review was written in July 1983 after watching the movie on videocassette.

How sweet of him.

And just to make sure that no one can blame him for running short of ideas, he included some very wtf innovative kills.

A woman gets killed by shaving foam.

A supernatural entity hits a woman's butt by a ladder causing her to swallow a car's exhaust pipe. The entity later turns on the car's engine and forces the woman to swallow the fumes.

Thank God I saw this for the first time recently since i just revisited part 1. This movie doesn't deserve a single viewing let aside revisiting.

Some info:

Jackie Chan's Fearless Hyena part 2 added flashbacks from part 1.

Wes Craven's Hills Have Eyes part 2 added flashbacks from part 1.

It was more then fifteen years ago that I watched the original Boge(e)yman. It was still the era of VHS. Now that most OOP's and other obscure movies are available on DVD I just watched the original Boogeyman 2. Original, cause a few years ago they made Boogeyman and Boogeyman 2. Back to the eighties it was for me. All I could remember from the first movie was that there wasn't a lot of killings and if they appear they weren't bloody after all. I also noticed in reviews that this version was a bit of a best off of the first part with some additional scene's. And it was, all the best parts of the first part are included in this part and sometimes they show the killing twice in different parts through the film. There are more bloodier killings in this one and a lot are seen from first person shots, but they are cheesy. The score is okay too. That's the reason that I gave it a 3 out of 10. The storyline is terrible, the movie isn't about anything and you can see things coming from miles away. Wait until the end at the graveyard...can you guess what will happen? So, my conclusion, if you haven't seen the first part watch this flick, you will have both movies in one.