Directed by Ulli Lommel
Written by Ulli Lommel and Suzanna Love
Starring:
- Suzanna Love as Lacey
- Shannah Hall as Bonnie
- Sholto von Douglas as Joseph
- Ulli Lommel as Mickey
- Bob Rosenfarb as Bernie
- Rhonda Aldrich as Cynthia
Rating:
Calling Boogeyman II a sequel to The Boogey Man is a bit generous. It’s more like a cannibalistic remix—director Ulli Lommel rummaging through his own earlier movie and stapling the leftovers together into something vaguely resembling a follow-up. Suzanna Love returns as Lacey, the poor soul whose childhood trauma involved drunken parents, domestic cruelty, and a shattered mirror that unleashed one nasty supernatural vendetta. This time around the spectral menace takes a back seat to a more mundane horror: the greasy machinery of the Hollywood film industry. The movie’s flimsy premise has Lacey recounting the events of her haunted upbringing to a bunch of smooth-talking producers eager to cash in on her misery. In theory it’s a sly meta gag—exploitation cinema literally exploiting the trauma of its own protagonist. In practice, though, it mostly serves as an excuse for Lommel to replay gigantic slabs of the original film almost scene for scene. It’s a clip show disguised as a sequel. Still, if you hang in there long enough, the final act finally cuts loose with a weird little slasher riff fueled by the same cracked supernatural energy that made the first film memorable. Problem is, you’ve basically rewatched the whole original just to get to that fleeting burst of fresh madness.
