If you recall, the original “Boogeyman” was a steaming pile that seemed to put up so much effort for an end product that would ultimately mean nothing, and this is because of the phenomenally bad writing that took the interesting concept and went nowhere fast. What “Boogeyman 2” does is take the typical route and makes all the obvious moves: It becomes a slasher movie, one that basically follows in continuity with the first without reminding us too much how much it stunk. Call me an apologist, proclaim my taste as being awful, but “Boogeyman 2” isn’t so bad. Sure it’s far from perfect but what it lacks in originality and scares it makes up for in creativity and hitting most of the right chords as a slasher film… and yes some of the performances manage to be pretty decent in the meanwhile.
Laura Porter is a woman terrible fear of the boogeyman. She dons such a thick fear of the being after seeing her parents being brutally killed as a child. She arrives to a local psychological institution where she hopes to seek help for her unusual condition. As you can guess, all of her attempts at receiving help are side stepped when patients all turn up dead, drowned in their own blood and offing themselves. Lurking around is a being of incredible stealth who violently inflicts pain on its victims and only Laura can see what may well be the boogeyman. When it becomes perfectly obvious that this is now just a slasher, “Boogeyman 2” discards any and all attempts are trying to convince us there’s a specter and just follows a different path admitting that yes, we’re watching a slasher. Once it becomes apparent that a human being is conducting the murders and not a monster, the plot holes and lapses in logic come flying to the screen faster than you can notice. How can a human being move so fast around such a confined area and how did the killer manage to shut off security lights and make hallways dim?
How did the killer manage to sneak roaches in a bag of chips? How did the killer manage to strap someone to a table. More so how the killer manage to become a veritable ninja hiding in the dark setting up the traps while the patients moved around the center? And it goes on and on! “The Boogey Man 2” may be a decent time killer but you’ll have to shut your brain down by will to not notice what is pure ridiculous and what’s just laziness. The primary question will be: How did the killer magically make these accidents happen and seek a hiding space all at the same time? There also manages to be security cameras that magically never show who or what the killer is and where their hiding in to allow them this feat or superhuman ability? Topping it off the movie seems to want to be “Saw” because it takes all the gimmicks and popular contraptions and squeezes it in along with a weak attempted surprise ending that fails to be shocking let alone original. The sloppy gimmick of deceit is thankfully not much of a problem once it becomes apparent that this is a slasher film.
The hall in which most of the murders ensue make for some decent tricks and action as the masked killer lurking around manages to find ways to allow the patients to off themselves and devises the clever methods to keep our killer and the characters interesting. Moreso star Danielle Savre manages to pull off a decent performance as the final girl who can only see the boogey man in the dark corners of the mental ward as bodies begin to appear thanks to the cruel methods of self inflicting torture. “Boogeyman 2” is a worthy time killer, one that makes lies about its purpose and it makes good with what it’s got and becomes quite a decent little slasher flick with surprises that often come with the occasional shock. It can definitely resemble “Saw” at times with booby traps, a masked murderer and a claustrophobic setting at hand, but in spite of it, “The Boogeyman 2” makes a good argument as a slasher film that’s worth spending your time on, if only to forget the ghastly original.