The movie begins with the 'Halloween-esque' shot of a quaint suburban home, all nestled quietly against beautiful lush scenery and ambiant darkness. Faint blues are used throughout, giving us the impression that something sinister is about to happen inside.
The camera latches still on the curious young faces of Willy and Lacey, who look barely six. They peak through the window at their alcoholic mother and her drunken sadistic boyfriend having foreplay (with a pair of panty hose over his face) when they get caught. It seems the boyfriend likes to tie young Billy to the bed when he's been a bad boy and leave him there.
Young Lacey, inclining on her sibling survival techniques, runs to the kitchen and grabs a butchers knife, cutting the ropes from Willy's wrists. He frees himself and runs to mom's bedroom (where her and boyfriend are making love) with the butcher's knife, and stabs the shit out of pantyhose man. Anyway, doesn't all this - the butchers knife, the voyeurism, the opening shot, (I forgot to mention the music), the murdering of someone by a young child - doesn't all this sound like we're in store for a masked killer who will ultimately 'come home' sometime during the movie? Sure it does, and why wouldn't it?
I don't want to give Lommel more credit than he deserves with his entry into the slasher sub-genre, but he threw us a loop - not just ripping off 'Halloween', but 'Amityville Horror', and 'The Exorcist' as well.
Anyway, after the kid knifes his mom's boyfriend to death, we go on down the road a bit, (around twenty years) where we find Lacey who has grown into a nice looking young woman, and her brother (who now is mute ever since that fateful night.) Oh yeah, I almost forgot: It seems as if a certain mirror in the bedroom on that night twenty years ago (My mom used to have one just like it - she purchased it for twenty bucks back in the early eighties.) captured the image of Willy murdering his abusive father figure and somehow traps the spirit of the dead boyfriend inside it.
It seems as if Lacey and her brother have made a pretty good life for themselves. She's a grown woman now, married to a local policeman, where she and her brother live with the husband's family in a big nice house on a farm.
Everything is going great until Lacey receives a letter from her psychotic mother who states that the doctors haven't given her much time to live, and that she feels it her right to be able to see Lacey and Willy before she passes on. This takes Lacey through a flashback of that fateful night, and resurfaces all those happenings, leaving her is a state of shit, I mean shock.
Weird things start to happen and people start to die in weird ways. Lacey starts seeing her mom's dead boyfriend in mirrors throughout the house. Willy paints the mirrors black while listening to The rolling Stones (just kidding) in a symbolic gesture.. It's all about the mirror's baby! An old hypnotist ( played by John Carradine) soon gets involved and during a session with Lacey, is witness to her inner demons. It's suggested that she go back to the house where her problems had originated and tackle her issues face to face.
Well, this seems like a good idea. She and her husband travel to that old two story house where three siblings are alone while Ma and Pa are on vacation. Lacey and her husband ask to come in and see the house again. All is fine until she walks into the bedroom. It just so happens that the same exact mirror that was on the wall twenty years ago just so happens to be in the same spot in the same bedroom. Ok, now that's the most logical thing I've ever heard.
Anyway, it's explained that the mirror just somehow never got thrown out and crap begins to happen. Lacey sees pantyhose man in the mirror and bashes it all to hell. Like any normal person, Lacey's husband puts all the pieces of the broken mirror in a paper bag and they take it back home with them.
After they leave, one of the weirdest death scenes in horror film history happens. If by some chance someone reading this review hasn't seen it yet, I'm not going to give it away, but let's just say that three siblings die in about thirty seconds, via some kick ass ways.
To make a long story short, throw in a little bit of a possession flick ( mixed with another sub genre) into a big bowl of slasherness and you'll ultimately end up with, 'The Boogeyman.'
Throw in a priest who tries to fight the menacing spirit of the pantyhose man, along with a mute brother who finally builds up enough strength to speak during the traumatic ending and you pretty much have it. Dammit, throw in a dumpy shot-on-video look (I have the old vhs copy) and THEN you'll have it.
I think I'm done. Wait, I said that looking into a mirror. So, did I actually say that backwards?
No comments:
Post a Comment