Watch The Boogens For Free

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Memorable, crazy movie

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I saw this film once as a kid and the main thing I remember about it is the fact that the monsters of the piece are almost a no show throughout said movie and that when I did see them they looked like some sort of turtle and snake. Years later, I get the film on DVD and watch it and I was correct, the monsters are a no show through most of the flick, but what I saw as a kid and processed looked so much better than what I see as an adult. This is also a case of a horror film being almost a really good film, but being underdone by several factors. The story has a couple of friends working with these other two older gentlemen trying to reopen a mine that was shut down in the early 1900's due to strange circumstances. They blast open a portion of the mine and then we get introduced to one of the younger guy's girlfriend and her friend and a dog that nobody seems to like who is seemingly near death at every step of the film! Well, when they blasted open a portion of the mine, they let loose some sort or creature, or creatures as the title implies and soon it is on a rampage; however, we mainly get to see new relationships budding, people losing at pool and missed sex opportunities. The film was almost good, but it spends way too much time focusing on stupid stuff rather than the poorly established monsters. Seriously, why not add a few more townspeople into the film, the old guy at the end says there are tunnels all through the place, why do they only attack the one house? Why did knocking out one cave close them up so thoroughly and why is Boogens plural when there is never more than one on screen at a time? Never before has a monster been implied so much until The Blair Witch came along! So, no, this film just had to much wrong with it to be a good horror film. It had enough going for it though to not be a total disaster though too. A couple of good kills and a good premise help it rise above being totally bad, too bad so much holds it back such as spending way too much time on stuff not related to the monsters. Speaking of them, when we finally see them, or it, they look almost cute!

If an old man tells you to not open the old mine, you should just leave the old mine closed. No one tells you these sorts of things without a reason. After all, there could be turtle creatures lurking in there, ready to kill everyone.Our friends at Jensen Farley Productions took a break from In Search of Historic Jesus and The Outer Space Connection to produce this film that is a strange mix between 1950's science fiction and a slasher. It's also filled with one of the horniest male characters in the history of 1980's horror and that's saying plenty.Awhile back, a silver mine closed after everyone in it but one person died. Brian Deering (John Crawford, The Towering Inferno) and Dan Ostroff are in town to make it happen, along with two young guys, Roger Lowrie and Mark Kinner. They're making the closed mine modern and also find tons of bones, but no one complete skeleton. It's at this point that I would move on to the next mine. But I'm not in The Boogens. I'm just a viewer. And I'm also a viewer who was five beers in at the drive-in while watching it.Roger and Mark are soon joined by Mark's girl Jessica (Anne-Marie Martin, Prom Night, the TV version of Dr. Strange) and another girl named Trish (Rebecca Balding, Silent Scream). While this is all going on, the landlady comes to open up their house, hits a deer, goes into a ditch, walks to the house in the freezing cold and then gets pulled into the basement and killed by what we can only assume is a Boogen.Roger has, by now, been the horniest dude ever and mentioned how many times he's going to have sex with Jessica and how long it's been since they have had sex (twelve days, trust me, I heard it a hundred times). Through whim of fate, Mark and Trish also hook up and we're treated to some heavy petting. But as Dr. Dealgood once told to the fine folks of Bartertown, "Dying time is here!"Also: Greenwalt (Jon Lormer, who gets his cake in Creepshow) is sneaking around and it's revealed that his father was the lone survivor of the mine. He's gonna blow up the mine real good to get rid of the Boogens.This movie moves at a glacial pace, with the last fifteen minutes finally being the energetic fun that Stephen King's blurb about it promised. That is, if you find turtle monsters scary. Or whatever that are.Director James L. Conway also directed Hangar 18, as well as numerous TV shows (he's currently working on Orville and The Magicians, was a producer on Charmed and even married Rebecca Balding during the filming).

With the advent of cheap CGI, a lost art has been created: the monster movie, sans monster. Creating a monster in the olden days was expensive. Having a good-looking puppet, or dare I say even something animatronic, would cost several hundreds if not multiple thousands of dollars, and could even require hiring a specialist to operate the creature. A lot of these older movies just didn't have the budget or the connections for that sort of thing.The Boogens is one of those monster movies -- it's 90 minutes long, but for the first 75-80 of those minutes, you'll never guess what the monster looks like. It's all POV shots of... well, it could be anything, really. Does it have arms? Legs? Teeth? Claws? Wings? Is it large, small? You just don't know, and the only clues you're given are from first-person point of view shots as the monster skulks around in the shadows.The movie tries to fill that void with stronger characters, and admittedly, the cast here isn't bad. There's some fun banter and decent characterization in the long, slow lead up to the monster finally taking action. But it just isn't enough. I eventually found myself getting bored, waiting for literally anything to happen. And that fun banter? Sometimes it's laid on just a little too thick.The Boogens finally slams on the gas pedal in the last ten minutes, but for all the setup the payoff feels thin and rushed. It's a race against a creature we've only just barely been introduced to. It doesn't help that when the creature is finally given the spotlight, I found it to look more silly than scary -- and maybe even a little cute.The Boogens is... tolerable, but not great. As a horror movie, it's just not very suspenseful. But you could do worse. That's the best endorsement I can give it.

The Boogens doesn't exactly have a notable plot. Little monsters escape and cause havoc and kill. Later examples are so much more successful. It isn't completely devoid of charm. At least it has some strong characters going for it. Even the sex mad ladies man character, is portrayed with a lot of heart and little annoyance. The build is far too slow. I enjoy a bit of tension, but if your monsters look like ridiculous puppets in the final reel, at least showcase them early. Only so many tentacle attacks I can stomach. It's also quite repetitive with just two locations, and the dog sniffing out danger gets about 4 separate scenes. Could do worse, but the slowness is a test of patience.