The Boogens (USA, 1981) 91 min color DIR: James L. Conway. PROD: Charles E. Sellier Jr. SCR: David O’Malley, Jim Kouf. MUSIC: Bob Summers. DOP: Paul Hipp. CAST: Rebecca Balding, Fred McCarren, Anne-Marie Martin, Jeff Harlan, John Crawford, Med Flory. (Olive Films)
Two girls, Trish (Rebecca Balding) and Jessica (Anne-Marie Martin), and one really annoying dog travel to a near-deserted mining town, to meet Jessica’s boyfriend Roger (Jeff Harlan), who is working in an excavation. Her plans to jump his bones will have to wait though, as the excavation uncovers a scaly monster that begins to make dinner out of the sparse population.
This old-fashioned horror film won a devoted following upon its initial release, and even received a rave from author Stephen King. Olive Films even treated this eagerly-awaited DVD release as a slightly more special event than their usual bare-bones discs, with an audio commentary track featuring Rebecca Balding, her husband and film’s director James L. Conway, and others. If one is watching this for the first time, one may wonder exactly why such a flyweight picture was so anticipated, or for that matter, what the appeal was during its original play at the drive-ins and on cable.
Perhaps its attraction was its old-fashioned approach, which (one steamy love scene notwithstanding) differed from the usual glut of slasher movies being made at the time. There is a minimum of gore, and the scares are delivered instead with the traditional methods of keeping the monster hidden from view (and of course once you finally see the haphazard creature at the end, you realize that was a wise decision).
But still, the characterizations are as thin as any of those in the cycle of Friday the 13th movies. As such, we’re witness to little more than horny young people with a single-minded effort to fornicate before the monster shows up.
The Boogens is pleasant, but only mildly interesting. There is a great potential for suspense with its minimum of characters and the cold, isolated locations, all of which would heighten the sense of dread and helplessness, but instead the project is rather flatly directed.
The chief fascination of this film is largely behind the scenes. This is one of the few features to star the spunky, pretty, doe-eyed actress Rebecca Balding, who had promise, and could have been a major scream queen in the 1980s. Alas, her career in horror only persisted with this film and her previous (superior) effort, Silent Scream. Still, it is to her credit that she succeeded in making a three-dimensional character even out of the brief outline offered here.
Also of interest is that this release employs James L. Conway, the producer and director of numerous paranormal-themed Sunn Classics films, such as Beyond and Back or Hangar 18. (That he would soon marry his lead actress may explain why she disappeared from the screen too soon.)
At the very least, The Boogens feels like the product of someone who wanted to offer up something different than the usual horror fare of its day, but still ended up with something as thin as the films it attempted to replace.
Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #25.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.