Synopsis
A young boy murders his mother’s abusive lover while his little sister watches the act in a mirror. Years later, the siblings are grown up. The brother is mute, and the sister (Susanna Love) is haunted by nightmares of that night. Seeking to purge the past, she revisits her old home, and sees the lover in the mirror. In terror, she smashes the mirror, thus unleashing the evil contained therein. Wherever fragments of the mirror show up, terrible deaths occur.
Or at least as terrible…as a very limited budget allow. Released in the midst of the 80s slasher craze, the film has plenty of elements from those films (including the heavily breathing camera, even though there isn’t anyone there). The script is raw, filled with clumsy dialogue and half-completed ideas, and there is plenty of clunkiness at the technical level. For all that, there is also a real sense of malaise. The film is far from slick, but it is genuine.
Audio
The sound on the main feature is mono, and is, generally, pretty good. There is some sign of age and low budget (some sibilance here and there, sometimes a bit of background hiss), but there are no crippling flaws. The bonus feature is in 2.0, and is workmanlike, but unspectacular.
Video
The print is in very fine shape, and the image is sharp. Grain is held to an absolute minimum, and the blacks are excellent. The same is true for the colours: bright and strong and true. Return of the Boogeyman, however, is a disaster: fullscreen, washed-out and pink-toned, it looks like a bad VHS transfer.
Special Features
Instead of doing fans a favour and including The Boogeyman II as the extra, with its intriguing metacinematic conceits, this is the lousy 1994 second sequel. A lousy film with awful picture quality, this is the kind of extra that actually diminishes the value of a disc. Also here are a few trailers. The menu is basic.
Closing Thoughts
Good presentation of the main feature, while the extra is just garbage. Worth it for the serious horror fan, however.
Special Features List
- “Return of the Boogeyman” Full Length Feature
- Trailers
