After the third installment of Boogeyman was released, it seemed there was no way to continue the saga, given how much it was deteriorating. It wasn't until 2003 that he surprised everyone with what he claimed was the director's cut of the second film. Boogeyman 2 Redux was marketed as an alternate version of the second film, but it ended up being an unexpected surprise-and not in a good way. The film is, in fact, a direct continuation of Boogeyman II, showing what director Mickey has been up to since the events of that film. It's understandable what direction he was going for, but it has a flaw. Mickey and Lacey were the only survivors of Boogeyman II, but this fourth film doesn't explain what happened to Lacey. It's not known whether she's alive or if the Boogeyman finally managed to catch her. What Mickey could at least have said in his testimony is what happened to Lacey. Moreover, it's clear that this film was made without any effort, since there are only seven scenes that Ulli Lommel shot. The rest of the film is actually the original movie that started this saga. All Ulli Lommel did was take the first movie and insert the new scenes he'd filmed. Something even a YouTuber could do, and it's obvious the new scenes were shot in just any room. Not to mention that Ulli also included scenes from Boogeyman II, but sped them up so as not to make the movie too long. The intention is that Mickey not only briefly recounts the murders from the second film, but also narrates the entire story that Lacey had told in the second film about what she experienced in the first installment. In Boogeyman II it was more condensed, but in Boogeyman 2 Redux the idea is that Mickey recounts everything that happened in the first movie verbatim. The bad thing about it is that Boogeyman 2 Redux is reduced to being the same movie that started the saga, and there's no new story to tell. Aside from the new scenes, the opening and closing credits from the first film were discarded, the scene of Father Reilly being stabbed in the back was cut by just a few seconds, and the ending of the first film was removed. So it doesn't have that many alterations, since the entire first movie was used. Very different from what was seen in the second and third films. Return of the Boggeyman almost uses the entire first film as well, only cutting out a few moments. The result of Boogeyman 2 Redux is that it feels like an alternate version of the first film, making it more of a bonus for collectors. You could say that this fourth film is worse than the third, but it has something that at least saves it from that. Return of the Boogeyman had a pretty incoherent story that couldn't fit with the continuity of the first film. We must also not forget that it had severe canonical errors, such as changing Lacey's name and the time period in which the first film took place. Boogeyman 2 Redux at least has coherence by being a direct continuation of Boogeyman 2, bringing back Mickey who acknowledges the events of that sequel, and containing no errors that contradict the first two installments. It's even appreciated that there's no voiceover narration to weigh down the experience. So, thanks to the continuity, this film is spared from being worse than the third installment, but it still doesn't escape being a bad movie. One thing Ulli Lommel had made clear was that he was against overexploiting films thru sequels. Lommel's films never even got sequels, and Boogeyman is his only film franchise. He had already made his thoughts on sequels clear with Boogeyman II, but he took it too seriously, deliberately making the Boogeyman sequels bad. He said he was proud of what he had done because he knew exactly what message he wanted to convey. But recycling the first film with each sequel became exhausting and overly repetitive. Ulli Lommel ended up turning Boogeyman into the worst film franchise. Had he not clung to his anti-Hollywood stance and worked with major studios, his career would have taken a different turn. As a result, he ended up devoting himself largely to Z-grade cinema and producing films with worse ratings than his earlier work. With this film, it's clear that the director had begun to decline, and it's no surprise that throughout the 2000s he produced films of poor quality. Boogeyman 2 Redux is no exception, having been made in a sloppy manner and promoted deceptively. Upon watching the film, both the title and the idea of it being marketed as an alternate cut of the second movie end up feeling like a scam for anyone who doesn't know what they're in for. Upon watching the film, both the title and the idea of it being marketed as an alternate cut of the second movie end up feeling like a scam for anyone who doesn't know what they're getting into. In conclusion, Boogeyman 2 Redux cannot really be considered a film, but rather extra content for those fascinated by the saga. Ulli Lommel's scenes give you the feeling that this was something made for a special edition of the first or second film, one of those that comes with an extra disk. That would have been much better than selling it as a director's cut of Boogeyman. The most logical thing would have been to sell it as an alternate version of the first film that serves as a sequel. Viewed as a movie, it's undoubtedly terrible, making it the second-worst installment in the saga. So the best recommendation would be to view it only as bonus content created for the most avid collectors. My final rating for this movie is 1/10.
