Mr.Boogedy (1986)

Cinema history is filled with movies that slipped through the cracks and are condemned to live out their existence to absolute obscurity, whether they deserve it or not. This is the unfortunate fate that has befallen the 1986, made for television Disney movie, Mr. Boogedy. It has never been given a proper DVD release and the only prints that you can find online are VHS quality, or worse.  It’s a fairly forgotten movie now, but it was a big enough deal in 1986 to warrant its own sequel, Bride of Boogedy.  The movie was a huge staple in my childhood; my dad recorded it off of television when it premiered in April of 1986, and my sister and I watched it repeatedly to the point of wearing out the VHS.

The premise is fairly straight forward: Carlton Davis, a novelty salesman (he specializes in gag gifts), moves his family to a small town in New England, the aptly named Lucifer Falls, to open a Gag City store and finds out that his house his haunted by ghosts. There is a scene early on that perfectly encapsulates the tone of the movie:  Jennifer Davis, the oldest of the three siblings, discovers green slimy footprints running up the wall of a room. The dad goes into investigate, peels the footprints off the wall, sticks them all over himself and jokes, “Honey, look! The Boogedy man has walked all over me.”  It is established that Davises are family of practical jokers, so he naturally assumes this is a prank. The movie has a few eerie moments in it, but in the end it is all about the humor.  

 Jennifer is the only sane one in the group, but her pleas fall onto deaf ears. There's a nice piece of characterization going on here; Jennifer is a teenager and is not at all amused by these pranks. She wants to go out and have fun, and is slightly resentful that her parents have chosen to move to "the middle of nowhere," because there is nothing to do. Her relationship with her brothers, Corwin and Aurie,  is  antagonistic at times, because they are "just kids" in her eyes, plus they are constantly ganging up to play tricks on her. When Jennifer attempts to tell her parents about her encounter with Mr. Boogedy, the two boys start taunting her. However, the two boys eventually realize Jennifer is telling the truth and the three of them team up to find a way to stop Mr.Boogedy.  There is a fascinating role reversal going on in Mr. Boogedy; the children act like grown ups, while the parents act like children.  

 

Mr. Boogedy is an interesting villain: He is the ghost of a grumpy pilgrim named William Hanover, who fell in love with the prettiest woman in town, Marion, but she did not reciprocate his feelings. He later sold his to The Devil for a cloak that would give him magical powers and then kidnapped Marion’s son Jonathan, who had a cold. However, while attempting to cast his first spell, he blew up his own house (located on the same spot as the Davis house) and killed Marion, Jonathan, and himself in the process. It is revealed that the ghost of Jonathan is trapped in the Davis house along with Mr. Boogedy; while the ghost of Marion cannot enter the house because Hanover has forbidden it.  The interesting thing about Mr. Boogedy’s haunting of the Davis family is that it is more mischievous in nature than malevolent: a toaster starts to dance around on the kitchen counter; a prop mummy comes to life and starts dancing, while a piano plays wildly in the background; and he zaps a prop vacuum cleaner to life and it chases after the youngest son, Aurie.  He doesn’t want to kill the family; he just wants them to go away. He is the supernatural equivalent to a grumpy old farmer who fills his shotgun up with rock salt to chase away all the no good teenagers trespassing on his property.  He just wants to be left alone. 

There are a lot of interesting directorial decisions by Oz Scott.  The flashback involving William Hanover and Marian is done in a minimalistic fashion.  The buildings and trees are cardboard cutouts, while The Devil is played by a man in the kind of costume you might find on clearance at Wal-Mart.  However, this scene works greatly to the movies benefit as it has a storybook-like feel to it. It is an effective piece of exposition – the audience is given all the information it needs to know.  It doesn’t resort of elaborate camera set ups, or over the top special effects, and gives the actors (especially Howard Witt as Hanover) room to perform.  

Scott also does a nice job of building up to Mr. Boogedy’s final appearance; he is first represented as an eerie green light. When Jennifer goes to investigate the light, we are only shown her reaction to Mr.Boogedy; the fact that she faints clues us in to the grotesque nature of his appearance. She describes his face as looking like “a grilled cheese sandwich” and later on calls him “hamburger face.”

The movie effectively uses sound to suggest a supernatural presence; characters constantly hear a child sneezing (this turns out to be Jonathan) and a maniacal laugh is often heard at the end of scenes.  Mr.Boogedy himself looks like Freddy Krueger’s long lost brother; his face is horribly burned and he is constantly laughing. Hey, the make up may look silly now, but it scared the hell out of me as a kid. 

The acting has often been described as “awful,” but I disagree – the broad, slight campy performances are appropriate for this material. The last thing we need is a scene of Carleton internalizing his most inner thoughts; this is a family comedy not a Tennessee Williams drama. Richard Masur steals the show as the dad without a serious bone in his body. I also like Mimi Kennedy’s portrayal as the mother, Eloise; she gives a fairly eccentric performance (her laugh sounds like a braying donkey) without robbing the character of her humanity. Indeed, Eloise turns out to be a compassionate person, especially when confronted with the ghost of Marion. The children are likeable enough (David Faustino and Benji Gregory would go onto star in Married With Children and ALF, while Kristy Swanson was the original Buffy, the Vampire Slayer), and John Astin is fun as the oddball historian, Neil Witherspoon.  The only really cringe worthy performance comes from Jamie McEnnan as Jonathan, but he has about two minutes of screen time.  It also helps that the movie is a lean 46 minutes; it gets directly to the point and doesn’t feel the need to pad its running time with unnecessary subplots. 

The sequel, Bride of Boogedy, is amusing but far less successful due to its fairly contrived story line – Mr.Boogedy mistakes Eloise for Marion and wants her to be his bride. Though, Eugene Levy is amusing as the grumpy store owner who resents the Davis family for imposing on his territory. The two movies would make for a fun double feature and I highly recommend you seek them out. 

Credits
Cast: Richard Masur (Carleton Davis), Mimi Kennedy (Eloise Davis), Kristy Swanson(Jennifer Davis), David Faustino (Corwin Davis), Benji Gregory (Aurie Davis), John Astin (Neil Witherspoon), Howard Witt (William Hanover/Mr.Boogedy), Katherine Kelly Lang (Widow Marion), Jamie McEnnan (Jonathan), Kedric Wolfe (The Devil).

Director: Oz Scott
Teleplay: Michael Janover
Running Time: 46 min.