Boogeyman

A mentally disturbed man (Barry Watson) returns to the childhood home where his father ran out on him and his mother, but we know (because we see it happen) that his father didn’t run out—the boogeyman in the closet got him. That—I kid you not—is the brilliant premise of Eric Kripke’s threadbare story. He and co-writers Stiles White and Juliet Snowden don’t bother to embellish it with anything resembling suspense, characters or a plot; it’s just a string of cheap scares that goes on for a while and then stops, and then the credits roll. Somehow, grown men and women apparently gave them and director Stephen T. Kay $20 million to film it, but it’s hard to think of a reason for this movie’s existence that doesn’t have the word “money” in it. Even die-hard horror buffs are likely to be bored and disappointed.