BOOGEYMAN 3

Audrey, the daughter of Dr. Sanderson, who was killed by a serial killer impersonating the Boogeyman, discovers her father's notes suggesting the real existence of the malevolent entity known as the Boogeyman. From that moment, Audrey is haunted by a strange being that manages to kill her. At the crime scene, Sarah, Audrey's roommate and best friend, is present and confides in her friends that she saw the Boogeyman commit the murder. On the university campus where Sarah lives and studies, strange events begin to occur, and students die one after another, spreading fear of the Boogeyman among the young... and this creature feeds on the fear of its victims. What a disastrous saga that of the Boogeyman! In 2005, Stepehen Kay directed a horror film about the fear of the dark that was simply ugly and uninspired. Two years later, Jeff Betancorut made a sequel that turned out to be a bland and predictable slasher. Now the Boogeyman returns for the third time, and the results don't change with a 'Boogeyman 3' that sinks into involuntary ridicule, the death of every horror film. Already from the second film, the saga had moved to direct-to-video (even though the Italian distribution gave us 'Boogeyman 2' in theaters), which is often a sign of a drop in quality. With a predecessor like 'Boogeyman,' there was really reason to be concerned. The predicted decline in quality is almost imperceptible (but it's there!) and in this third episode it becomes increasingly evident. At the helm of 'Boogeyman 3' is a guarantee of 'trash,' namely Gary Jones, who in his career has trash gems like 'Spiders - Deadly Metamorphosis,' 'Jolly Roger,' and 'Crocodile 2,' hence a name that is already a whole program. The screenplay, on the other hand, is by the 'genius' who had already written the second installment, Brian Sieve, who tries to create a thread of connection with the previous film from which the legacy of Dr. Sanderson derives, played by Tobin 'Jigsaw' Bell (who appears here only in photos). From an opening that connects the two films, the story then continues with a completely new and autonomous story that tries to combine the paranormal suggestions of the first installment with the body-count construction of the second. A supernatural slasher like there are countless, indeed particularly poorly made. On the one hand, we find an aesthetic rendering that appears unusual for Gary Jones' standards - but here it is a production labeled Sam Raimi, therefore a bit more consistent compared to those with which the director is used to working -, for the rendering there is a somewhat whimsical slasher that brings to the stage completely anonymous characters who die in a way that would like to appear whimsical, but appears anonymous as well. There is not even an effort to dig in the pond of stereotypes, only characters who are not such, faceless figures of whom we immediately forget face and role. Okay, you will say 'but what did you expect from 'Boogeyman 3'?' Certainly nothing that could aspire to a rating above mediocre, but seeing characters so evanescent on screen that they are not recognized from one shot to another is really unsettling. Let's move on to the body-count department. The deaths would like to be whimsical, because it is known, after 'Final Destination' and 'Saw,' the race for the most 'cool' death is always on - rightly, for products of pure entertainment - but in 'Boogeyman 3' it all turns out to be a soap bubble. There is the guy impaled with the bong for smoking, the one who is sucked into a suitcase, the girl put inside a washing machine... these little things, in short, with the use of the minimum dose - almost imperceptible - of gore, which becomes more present just in the laundry sequence. Questionable is the choice of bad digital effects for the realization of things that would have come out a hundred times better if made with homemade effects (above all the blood splatters). Even the look of the Boogeyman is a bit like that; certainly better than the one seen in the first film, but still decidedly anonymous and erroneously shown too clearly from the beginning. The big mistake of Gary Jones was not to focus at all on building tension, which in a film that talks about childhood fears and night terrors would have been an almost obligatory choice. Instead, nothing. In that pair of scenes where the suspense card is attempted with the 'loaded' entrance of the monster, the management of times does not appear minimally adequate. On the other hand, Jones makes some excellent comedic scenes - the fault is of the script! - in which masses of vocal students complain from time to time about being afraid of the Boogeyman. Pathetically embarrassing scenes that are hard to take seriously, instead they provoke the spectator's laughter. We hope that a 'Boogeyman 4' will never see the light of day because it would really make no sense to continue such a bad and poorly conceived saga. The only thing that is a pity is to see the mainstream figure of the childhood horror imagination wasted for three times, from which something memorable could have been drawn. But let's settle for what is still today the most successful Boogeyman in cinema history, Freddy Krueger, whose worst film always appears three lengths above any 'Boogeyman'.