The Boogey Man (1980)

23 Jul 2023

Rating: 3/5

When you break a mirror, you free everything it’s seen

As children, Lacey watches through a mirror as her brother Willy murders their mother’s lover. Twenty years later, Willy is psychosomatically mute, and Lacey has recurring nightmares of the event

To assuage the fear, Lacey’s husband takes her to the childhood home, where the mirror still hangs. In it, she sees the man that Willy killed, and she breaks the mirror in fear, unleashing a malevolent force

The soundtrack rules — its Carpenter-adjacent/Tangerine Dream synth, but sounds like contemporary takes despite being from the 70s

The movie has a faint outline of a theme regarding immature, inconsistent parents vs attentive and loving parents, but it doesn’t land in a place where it feels intentional

Overall, this movie is kind of nonsense and not well-acted, but it has some cool lighting and visuals, and a couple of creative kills

Stray Thoughts


See Review on Letterboxd