Spoilers
Ed Wood didn't die in 1978. He was alive and well in 1983 and directed BOOGEYMAN II. That would be the ONLY plausible explanation for the amazing ineptitude of this "horror" film. There are so many moments in this film that are the exact filmmaking techniques Ed Wood used in his films that it's unreal. Here's a list of examples:
Ed Wood acted in his movies (like in GLEN OR GLENDA). In BOOGEYMAN II, Ulli Lommel, who was the director of THE BOOGEYMAN (and the "unofficial" director of this sequel) plays Mickey. Ulli Lommel is a TERRIBLE actor, just like Ed was. The blond woman, who plays Suzanna's friend, reminded me of Ed Wood's main blond squeeze in GLEN OR GLENDA, Dolores Fuller. The acting from both women are identically bad.
Aside from the criminally long flashbacks, which show whole sequences from the first movie, BOOGEYMAN II is made up of other amazing cost saving ways, moments like when we only see filmed action with the voices of the actors added later in post-production. For example, the EXTREME long shots of people standing next to the pool and talking. But they're so far away that you can't really tell if they're talking or not but we hear a conversation going on between the two, even though the two actors probably just stood there with their mouths closed. So, from the looks of it, Lommel simply filmed two actors standing next to the pool and the content or the dialogue was written and added later in post-production. Cost saving techniques like this are very reminiscent of what Ed Wood did with his films.
Another thing that reminded me of Ed Wood was the moralistic tone of the "story": should they make a movie about Suzanna's experience or not? We see a parade of faces, exemplifying every cliched Hollywood types. The scene of Suzanna being greeted by these unscrupulous folks is very poky but oddly effective in a very "Ed Woodian" way. This "reality vs Hollywood reality" is probably the ONLY clever aspect of the film but, like everything else in BOOGEYMAN II, it's totally mishandled and falls flat. When Lommel walks around his house, with corpses all around and thinking it's all a prank, well, it ends up being more embarrassing than funny.
Then there are the absolutely ridiculous death scenes, which for some unexplained reason, always involve a man and a woman getting killed together. These deaths rank amongst the silliest ever put on celluloid. Death by electric toothbrush? Death by shaving cream? Death by CORKSCREW?!?! The death scenes in the bathroom reminded me a lot of the now famous close-up shots of the woman recording herself with the video camera in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. But there's a death scene that's so ridiculous that you have to see it to believe it: inside a garage, two people are sitting in a car. The lights start flickering. The man stands up in his car, standing through the opened sunroof window. The guy is PULLED up and out from his car while the woman watches on. Even though this happens right before her eyes, she starts looking for her date inside the small and mostly empty garage. She even looks for him under the car (arf!)! As the woman crouches down, the evil spirit levitates a ladder behind her and hits her butt with it, forcing the woman, with her mouth open, to swallow car's exhaust pipe. The evil spirit then proceeds to turn on the car's engine and the woman, stuck there at the pipe, is forced to swallow the fumes. This is probably the funniest death scene ever conceived for a movie.
BOOGEYMAN II is remarkably awful but it's so bad that, like Ed Wood movies, it's really entertaining in a "it's so bad it's good" way. I watched twice in a row! THE BOOGEYMAN, though not the greatest film in the world, was pretty good and looks like a masterpiece compared to this stupid sequel. Anyway, at least Suzanna Love is beautiful and the music is the one good thing to be found in this weird movie.
It's obvious Ulli Lommel, who apparently hated making horror films and couldn't get funding for anything but horror films, did this movie out of spite. The film is a slap on the face, to fans of horror, to fans of the first movie, to anyone who rented this. I'm glad though that I have the video in my collection. It's a definite curio that has to be seen to be believed.
Ed Wood didn't die in 1978. He was alive and well in 1983 and directed BOOGEYMAN II. That would be the ONLY plausible explanation for the amazing ineptitude of this "horror" film. There are so many moments in this film that are the exact filmmaking techniques Ed Wood used in his films that it's unreal. Here's a list of examples:
Ed Wood acted in his movies (like in GLEN OR GLENDA). In BOOGEYMAN II, Ulli Lommel, who was the director of THE BOOGEYMAN (and the "unofficial" director of this sequel) plays Mickey. Ulli Lommel is a TERRIBLE actor, just like Ed was. The blond woman, who plays Suzanna's friend, reminded me of Ed Wood's main blond squeeze in GLEN OR GLENDA, Dolores Fuller. The acting from both women are identically bad.
Aside from the criminally long flashbacks, which show whole sequences from the first movie, BOOGEYMAN II is made up of other amazing cost saving ways, moments like when we only see filmed action with the voices of the actors added later in post-production. For example, the EXTREME long shots of people standing next to the pool and talking. But they're so far away that you can't really tell if they're talking or not but we hear a conversation going on between the two, even though the two actors probably just stood there with their mouths closed. So, from the looks of it, Lommel simply filmed two actors standing next to the pool and the content or the dialogue was written and added later in post-production. Cost saving techniques like this are very reminiscent of what Ed Wood did with his films.
Another thing that reminded me of Ed Wood was the moralistic tone of the "story": should they make a movie about Suzanna's experience or not? We see a parade of faces, exemplifying every cliched Hollywood types. The scene of Suzanna being greeted by these unscrupulous folks is very poky but oddly effective in a very "Ed Woodian" way. This "reality vs Hollywood reality" is probably the ONLY clever aspect of the film but, like everything else in BOOGEYMAN II, it's totally mishandled and falls flat. When Lommel walks around his house, with corpses all around and thinking it's all a prank, well, it ends up being more embarrassing than funny.
Then there are the absolutely ridiculous death scenes, which for some unexplained reason, always involve a man and a woman getting killed together. These deaths rank amongst the silliest ever put on celluloid. Death by electric toothbrush? Death by shaving cream? Death by CORKSCREW?!?! The death scenes in the bathroom reminded me a lot of the now famous close-up shots of the woman recording herself with the video camera in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. But there's a death scene that's so ridiculous that you have to see it to believe it: inside a garage, two people are sitting in a car. The lights start flickering. The man stands up in his car, standing through the opened sunroof window. The guy is PULLED up and out from his car while the woman watches on. Even though this happens right before her eyes, she starts looking for her date inside the small and mostly empty garage. She even looks for him under the car (arf!)! As the woman crouches down, the evil spirit levitates a ladder behind her and hits her butt with it, forcing the woman, with her mouth open, to swallow car's exhaust pipe. The evil spirit then proceeds to turn on the car's engine and the woman, stuck there at the pipe, is forced to swallow the fumes. This is probably the funniest death scene ever conceived for a movie.
BOOGEYMAN II is remarkably awful but it's so bad that, like Ed Wood movies, it's really entertaining in a "it's so bad it's good" way. I watched twice in a row! THE BOOGEYMAN, though not the greatest film in the world, was pretty good and looks like a masterpiece compared to this stupid sequel. Anyway, at least Suzanna Love is beautiful and the music is the one good thing to be found in this weird movie.
It's obvious Ulli Lommel, who apparently hated making horror films and couldn't get funding for anything but horror films, did this movie out of spite. The film is a slap on the face, to fans of horror, to fans of the first movie, to anyone who rented this. I'm glad though that I have the video in my collection. It's a definite curio that has to be seen to be believed.