The Boogey Man : Leonard Maltin…

Leonard Maltin…

...gave this three stars...out of four (?!). The same exact rating he gave the original "Halloween" in his annual movie guide. "The Boogeyman" was a direct rip-off and poor imitation of "Halloween", not to mention borrowing from other great horror films, such as "The Amityville Horror" and "The Exorcist". That's a real head-scratcher.

Just for fun, here are a few films that received a lower rating than "The Boogeyman"...

Steven Speilberg's "Munich": **1/2
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: *
Sin City: *1/2
Halloween II: *1/2
My Bloody Valentine (1980): *
Pumpkinhead: **1/2
Natural Born Killers: *1/2


Recent Theatre Viewings:
Land Of The Lost: 4/10
The Hangover: 5/10
Bruno: 5/10

Re: Leonard Maltin…

I must wholeheartedly disagree with that gayboy Maltin. I just watched this movie today and it was god-awful and silly. My brother and I really ripped into it MST3K-style.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

Leonard Maltin is an insufferable, idiotic, moronic, uncreative boob who should never have been allowed to review movies. This guy has seen way too many Looney Tunes and has his head stuck up Mickey Mouse's rat ass. He has steered me in the direction of more lousy, incoherent, boring and pretentious films than I would ever care to mention. How can you possibly trust a guy who gave The Shining 2 stars and Blade Runner 1 1/2? And to think that I actually trusted and depended on him in my early years of film criticism. Read the Village Voice instead.

I've got a hundred dollars...let's fall in love.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

If you are going by his movie guide with the capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin doesn't actually review all (any?) of the movies in that book. He hires many people to do it for him.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

That's a very good point. I didn't think about that. But the problem is, his name and face are on the cover, so those reviews 'represent' him. I write my own reviews now because I am sick of these so-called critics' opinions. The only two movie reviewers that I usually agree with are Peter Travers of Rolling Stone and J. Hoberman of the Village Voice.

I've got a hundred dollars...let's fall in love.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

Well, I'd say this scrappy little gem is better than most of those film you mentioned, especially "Sin City," "Halloween II" (Rob Zombie's, right?), and "Natural Born Killers." I don't see the "Halloween" influence here, and the 1993 movie "Amityville: A New Generation" seems to borrow heavily from this, rather than vice- versa.

I can't see why people get upset if a critic doesn't agree with them. I'm much more concerned with what they say about a film than what they rate it anyway. Have a nice day, keep watching the movies you love, and let others have their opinions.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

Again how is this ANYTHING like Halloween? It's NOTHING like it. Nothing. Did the OP even see the film? .
Since when is Halloween a supernatural slasher?

Re: Leonard Maltin…

LOL I don't really know how anybody could not see this movie's similarities to "Halloween". For one thing, it is called "The Boogey Man", which is what the killer in "Halloween" was referred to as. Then there are the numerous point-of-view shots in the film, accompanied by a heavy breathing on the soundtrack, exactly like "Halloween" did. The opening of the movie features a knife murder that was committed by a young male child. Even a lot of the photography mimics scenes from "Halloween", especially the lighting.

I remember there was a short TV spot for "The Boogey Man", which seemed to focus on the scene of Suzanne Love pounding on the locked front door while a voice over talked ominously about The Boogey Man, and it reminded a ten-year-old me of Laurie pounding on the front door screaming for Tommy.

Something even more ridiculous: the sequel for this film features a low budget filmmaker telling someone about how "Halloween" is out of fashion and what kids really want now is "suspense".

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Re: Leonard Maltin…

To reiterate an earlier comment - those books are compiled by a team of 15-20 people and they aim the book at the basic movie audience. I actually wrote maltin a letter in the early '90s griping him out for including TV Movies in his book but omitting things like Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy. That's what pissed me off. That exact omission.

Stunningly, I got a hand written note on letterhead about two weeks later, apologizing. He explained that the book wasn't for people who were watching Ozu but for people who were more likely to choose something like "The Incredibly True Story of the Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom." He said it wasn't up to him but the publishing company.

It was a nice note and very long (full page, three longish hand-written paragraphs) answering my note which could have been termed "snotty" at best.

So while I still feel he's a bit of a dill-weed and a shill for Disney, he schooled me that day and was nice about it.

So that's my story.



"Rampart: Squad 51."

Re: Leonard Maltin…

While I agree Halloween should have a higher rating than 3 stars (3 1/2 or maybe even 4), I have no issue with him giving Boogeyman a 3 and fail to see how the two films are even comparable. I found this WAY more interesting than most slasher flick from the time. It's certainly more creative (visually and conceptually) than Halloween II and My Bloody Valentine. Pumpkinhead is decent, but I doubt I'd rate it above 2 1/2 myself. I found Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Sin City and Natural Born Killers all over-stylized, empty and irritating to sit through so I wouldn't rank any of them high myself.

My horror movie blog:
http://thebloodypitofhorror.blogspot.com/

Re: Leonard Maltin…

Oh.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

If I remember correctly, Maltin's book also gave John Carpenter's "The Thing" just 1 1/2 *'s.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

Fuck that Maltin guy and his bullshit MOR opinions!

Yes, this is really me.

Re: Leonard Maltin…

Maltin also gave three star reviews to both Q and Humanoids from the Deep, so every now and then he actually got it right.

Yes, this is really me.
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