Horror Fest VII Day One: The Boogens and Moontrap

 Forgive the shortness of the following reviews but here at Blogorium headquarters it's getting a little late... okay, much later than that to be honest, and I don't have much to add to The Boogens beyond what I wrote here and here.

 Moontrap, well, let's just say that there's not much that ever needs to be said about that movie, but I'll give it the old college try.

 But first, a few random thoughts on The Boogens: I watched it tonight with two people who hadn't seen the film before, hadn't ever heard of it, and most importantly didn't know what a Boogens looks like (yes, I am assuming that since the old man just calls them Boogens that the singular is also Boogens and if necessary the plural is Boogenses). They both confirmed what I and everybody who ever reviewed this film firmly believes: that if you knew what the creatures looked like at any point before the end of the film, you wouldn't be able to pay attention to the story at all. You'd be too busy waiting for the next time you saw a Boogens, so you could laugh at it (or, as they agreed, think it looks kind of adorable).

 While it's a long held belief in horror that the less you see of the monster, the more effective the film is (Alien, Jaws, Halloween), The Boogens relies entirely on the fact that it's creature is so goofy looking that there's no way to show it before the very end of the film. Without knowing that your creature is a half turtle / half octopus with saber-tooth tiger incisors, you're able to be vaguely invested in the story of Mark, Roger, Trish, and Jessica. Even Tiger, the stupid dog that everybody hates (including the main characters) has some level of empathy when he (SPOILER) gets it.

 Also, because I don't think I mentioned it last time, we spend a while trying to suss out where Silver City, Colorado was (because it doesn't exist and Trish would have to drive four hours to get back to Denver if they were in Silver City, New Mexico - the closest actual place) but the movie was film in Park City, Utah. I've mentioned the fact that The Boogens feels like a porno with all of the sex scenes removed (or tamed down) but it was nice to have someone else point out that so many parts of the movie have dialogue that sounds like a set-up for getting down only to cut to the next scene. I still contend that there's a This Ain't The Boogens: A XXX Parody out there somewhere.

 Finally, Rebecca Balding (Trish) was also in The Silent Scream, and Anne-Marie Martin (Jessica) was in Prom Night, Halloween II, The Young Ones, and most importantly, Sledge Hammer. Fred McCarren (Mark), in addition to looking like a long lost Duplass brother, was in Xanadu, and Jeff Harlan (Roger) was in Auto Focus and did voic-eover work for Batman Beyond. Jon Lormer had quite a prolific career doing television and film before playing Greenwalt, the old man (actual credit) in The Boogens, but chances are you either remember him as Professor Dactyl on Batman or as the old man who wants his birthday cake in Creepshow. Clearly the former over the latter.

 Okay so I had a lot more to say about The Boogens than I thought I would, which is good because Moontrap is pretty terrible. Well, by "pretty" I mean "really" and by "terrible" I mean "borderline unwatchable." While it's not uncommon to have conversations during the movie, I rarely get into a long discussion of the relative merits of Prometheus at the expense of the film at hand. Sure enough, we realized that we'd been ignoring Moontrap and, little to our surprise, we hadn't missed a thing.

 Written by Tex Ragsdale (which I assumed was a pseudonym for the person who really wrote this and realized how horrible it was, but apparently it's not) and directed by Robert Dyke (who is a real person that worked on miniatures for Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn), Moontrap is the nonsensical story of Colonel Jason Grant (Walter Koenig) and his flight partner Ray Tanner (Bruce Campbell) - nicknamed "Einstein" and "The Penetrator," if you were curious - two NASA pilots is the presumably near-future that come across a derelict spacecraft in Earth's orbit. It's from the moon, specifically the "Prometheus Crater" (you can see how the discussion started, I hope), and contain the corpse of a 14,000 year old mummified human astronaut, as well as a pod housing a robot. The robot escapes the NASA underground lab and uses the corpse to become a Cylon knock-off (that, or if you prefer, something the modern Battlestar Galactica ripped off in their Centurion design) that Jason and Ray help destroy.

 Ray and Jason are then allowed to fly to the moon to discover the origin of this ship, where they find a giant pyramid and a preserved woman named Mera (Leigh Lombardi) who doesn't speak English or understand why two astronauts are carrying space Uzis, but doesn't really seem to care and joins them. The robots, in the meantime, steal their lunar lander, kill Ray, and leave Jason alone to have sex with Mera in his handy space igloo, before capturing them and taking them on their ship to Earth to unleash an army of killer robots that will assimilate humanity and wipe them out.

 Wait... maybe I'm getting this all wrong. Maybe Prometheus and Battlestar Galactica ripped off Moontrap, and not only that but Tex Ragsdale and Robert Dyke beat Star Trek: The Next Generation to the punch with the whole "Borg" thing. Or maybe Moontrap is a sloppy mess of screenwriting where one plot point rarely leads to another, characters do next to nothing that makes sense, and depending on whether the budget can handle it or not, there is or is not sound in space. There is definitely Walter Koenig voice-over that's used in order to trick us into thinking he's saying something while floating around the derelict ship. I know that much, because his mouth isn't moving but he's clearly addressing Ray and not the audience.

 We watched Moontrap because of a request, and I like to entertain requests when possible, but this certainly was just as bad as I remembered it being. Maybe worse.

Blogorium Review: The Boogens

Good news, horror fans: The Boogens is a better-than-I-expected horror film from 1981 with some genuine suspense, sparse but effective gore, and a reliance on suggesting rather than showing. It has a very good chance of showing at Summer Fest in July, but I find it unfortunate that this diamond in the rough is so hard to find for horror fans looking for a new thrill, but if you're willing to do some digging around, you'll be rewarded for your efforts.

Miners Brian Deering (John Crawford) and Dan Ostroff (Med Flory) are re-opening a mine in Silver City, Colorad that collapsed nearly 70 years ago. With the assistance of Roger Lowrie (Jeff Harlan) and Mark Kinner (Fred McCarren), they manage to blow open the sealed off area and begin surveying the long abandoned tunnels. Meanwhile, Roger's girlfriend Jessica Ford (Anne-Marie Martin) and her best friend Trish Michaels (Rebecca Balding) are headed up to a cabin the foursome are renting for the winter, accompanied by Jessica's trouble-making dog Tiger. Unbeknownst to everyone but a crazy old man* (Jon Lormer), an ancient evil has been let loose by the explosion, and now the Boogens are free to terrorize Silver City again...

The Boogens is actually a surprisingly good horror movie, considering that it has all but vanished from public consciousness. Most of the reviews online point out how viewers weren't expecting the film to be any good at all, only to be pleasantly entertained for 95 minutes. The truth is that while I was expecting a competent horror film, The Boogens does a fine job of setting up the characters, geography, and maintains tension for much of the film, even if at the expense of some serious plot holes (see below). The cast is uniformly good, if not a little goofy, and writers David O'Malley and Bob Hunt keep the audience invested in their plight. The Boogens is also helped by the fact that the creatures themselves are a presence felt more than seen.

To the credit of director James Conway, the monsters aren't visible until the film is nearly over, which helps add tension. Before we ever see what's killing people, the miners wander into their lair, which consists of an underground pond and a pile of human bones. By never seeing the threat, The Boogens disguises its biggest weakness: the Boogens. While I am tempted to spoil it and tell you what they look like, the Cap'n has a special contest in mind for Summer Fest, so I will instead say only that when you finally see a Boogen(?) that the lack of on-screen Boogen activity is actually a blessing. Not that the actual monster in action is silly, but its design makes no sense and they aren't really that scary. Because Conway spends much of the film with shots from the monster's POV or only giving brief glimpses, The Boogens is a more effective movie for it.

At one point I wondered aloud if The Boogens was actually what the monsters were called or if it was an arbitrary decision by the filmmakers in order to have a name for the film. Fortunately, just as I asked the old man muttered "Oh no... the Boogens...." which is the one and only time anyone at all in the film identifies them by name. In fact, as the crazy old man who only speaks during one scene is the sole character in the film who has an idea they exist in the first place, there isn't actually an explanation at all for what the Boogens are - the "exposition" scene so prevalent in this kind of film is limited to "I tried to warn you.... they were in the mines and you let them out... oh no.... the Boogens..."

(Minor Spoiler) I don't want to harp too much on the plot holes, but it doesn't actually make much sense that the tunnel that leads from the mine to the cabin would suddenly be unblocked by the explosion, allowing the Boogens to travel freely between their lair and the mine. They set up the idea that there are three tunnels on the other side of the cave-in, but the entrance in the cabin is never blocked so it's not really clear why the Boogens couldn't already wander around. Perhaps I ask too much of an otherwise enjoyable film.

There is a tiny side note I'd like to point out: if anybody is still questioning The House of the Devil's approach to recreating the early 1980s, please direct yourself towards any scene taking place in the cabin or in town during The Boogens. An early sequence with Landlady Martha Chapman (Marcia Reider) opening up the cabin before the kids (?) move in is particularly reminiscent of moments in The House of the Devil (well, vice-versa, I suppose), and while The Boogens isn't necessarily an "80s" film, it certainly represents the era Ti West evokes in his 2009 film. I also give it kudos for being made in the same year as My Bloody Valentine and yet not making me think of that film once, despite the mine-centric plot.

As far as I know, The Boogens is only available on VHS, with an occasional airing on Turner Classic Movies Underground, which adds to its "obscure horror movie" status. This is a shame, as I think The Boogens would make a fine "party" movie, as it's entertaining enough not to bore a crowd and silly enough to keep you invested in the proceedings. While by no means a "classic," The Boogens is nevertheless a bright spot in the wast wilderness of forgotten horror films.


* He's identified in the credits as Greenwalt, but I challenge you to find out where that information is in the actual story.