I remember in 1981, as a kid, seeing a movie trailer where screaming victims of an unseen assailant are pulled under floors, down stairs, into vents, etc. I hated the concept of being "pulled under". See my thoughts on Blood Beach.
The trailer terrified my 10 year old ass. At the end of it, that deep movie trailer voice uttered the title of said film:
The Boogens.
That title kind of took a little off the fastball.
The Boogens (try not to snicker) was released smack dab in the midst of the slasher phenomenon. The antagonists are monsters in this one, unleashed from a decades-buried mine. (But you don't know that until the third act). The film's tension follows the same formula as a standard slasher film anyway. Despite all that, Stephen King is a fan.
The dialogue, especially early on, is particularly shitty, which is a shame as almost all the performers here are more than up to the challenge of better stuff. You may even recognize some of the faces here. The Boogens has a solid slasher film string score that works nicely. Frani pointed out when I was researching for the trailer that the music sounded like an attempt at John Carpenter. None of this trailer tuneage appears in the film.
It's a pretty good tension burner which it uses to offset really low budget effects. The Boogens is a movie designed for the Halloween time of year, and if you can find a way to absorb it, go for it.
This is a film, like many of its ilk, that as the decades have passed, has developed a bit of a cult following; which makes it all the more worth the evaluation.
Boogens.
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