Boo

Boo

Boo

Moviecut—Boo

Well, Sci Fi channel was "treating" viewers to an all day long horror fest. BOO was the only one I diddnt recognize so I decided to give it a shot. Man was that a mistake. This movie was so amateur on so many levels where do I start? First off this movie was not even remotely frightening. You would actually be amazed at exactly how many times this movie manages to not scare you. The special effects are third rate. Which actually brings me to another point, in a HORROR movie exactly how do you manage to get the color of blood wrong? I mean isn't that the very FIRST thing you get right? Give me a bottle of corn syrup and red food coloring and I promise I could make more realistic blood in 10 seconds. There are exactly 2 kinds of blood in this film. Jello like (yes jello like, chunky, shiny, and see through), and syrupy and off color, almost orange...like buffalo wing sauce. Frightening indeed! Next is the acting, or an odd lack thereof. I mean seriously this was cue card reading caliber. No chemistry, no delivery. There have been infomercials and video game voice recording with more authenticity. Not to mention how miscast some of the parts were (like the long haired meterosexual wimpy pretty boy cop? HUH???). Finally the special effects. Lemme break em down. The most impressive was possibly the skinless dog. Mildly cool (yet done with mediocre puppetteering. I mean I believe its head was the only thing that moved.) Ghosts which were merely actors with 5 dollar white face paint (seriously), and finally the weak exploding corpses. You see when any baddie is shot, even with a small 22 handgun they merely explode in a very low budget 70's movie way (to apparently save some cash with their 100 dollar special effects budget. I mean even the girl who gets shot in the heads head wound is apparently just a red painted on dot. My god, I could buy a gunshot wound makeup pack for like 3 dollars. Anyway nothing in this movie is compelling or even mildly frightening. I must admit I had to leave with 7 mins. left in the movie so maybe something spectacular and deeply frightening happened at that point but I doubt it. Terrible, and frankly boring movie. Use only for MST3K treatment.

At 1st i thought this sounded like any other horror movie these days, teenage kids getting trapped in a scary place, but i had already heard good things so i decided to rent it, 5 days later i still have not returned this movie and i could not recommend it to you enough. What makes it different from any other "horror" movie filled with teenage kids you say? well here are a few things: This is the 1st movie i have seen in a LONG time that actually made me jump more than once. The other thing that stands out after watching this movie was how on edge i felt through out the movie, uneasy if you will and i loved that feeling!! There were so many scenes that creeped me out, you see what they don't see, but the thought of the ghosts being there and them not even knowing it, now that was a nice touch. The characters in this movie actually chance, it has a "The Thing" feel to it, in the fact that the ghosts take over the humans and the others don't know who is human and who is possessed, which of course leads to Major paranoia and even some bloody deaths. Thats right folks this movie is also very very gory, not over done, but enough to keep any gore hound happy thats for sure. There are so many things going on in this movie, you never get bored, your always on the edge of your seat and sometimes your even thrown out of it. But its not confusing at all, its hard to explain the feel of this movie as it is very real, but at the same time very weird, lots of flash back scenes to help you figure out why these ghosts are at war and the special FX are very well done. I would be very comfortable in saying that this was the scariest film i have seen all year and it had everything ( except tits ) that i would except to see in a horror movie, plus MORE. So for those looking for a REAL horror movie, not a movie thats been made for the sake of making money or because they landed a big name to fill the lead role, you HAVE to check out "Boo!" you wont be disappointed and from the reviews i have already read, not to many people have been.

Boo is a standard yarn of teenagers hanging out in a remote and haunted place, this time in an abandoned hospital. As in most of these types of movies, some make it out alive and some don't. There is inventiveness in the manner of deaths, and also the destruction (albiet temporarily) of ghosts. The movie made me jump on several occasions and two friends I know who saw it loved it and another who had to stop around the 30 minute mark as she was getting too creeped out. There is a fair amount of blood and gore in the unrated version I saw, but no nudity. The acting was okay, if not enthusiastic, for a low budget horror with production values fairly high for this direct to video release.

I don't get to write much reviews on IMDb any longer, but this movie made me want to join the bad reviews people had been giving this film. It's unbelievable that it actually made such a high score! I'm really led to believe that the actors and the crew had been voting here. The main problem in this film is the acting : is so outstandingly bad that it gets annoying. I didn't even care for the stupid plot, because the lines were so fake and unrealistic that I couldn't focus on the story at all. I think the director should have dubbed the movie all over, maybe that would've helped a little. The actors lacked any kind of emotion expressions whatsoever. Some may blame the low budget here, but I don't think that's a excuse for such a bad execution. For example, in one scene, a moronic blonde dude is watching his best friend turning into a monster, right in front of his eyes , and instead of being shock or held disbelief, he starts screaming(calmly and not-that-convinced) to the one guy that is trying to shoot the monster "don't kill my friend, he is my best friend" ; and when the monster finally gets shot, the moronic blonde dude starts complaining "you shot my best friend, I'm gonna call the cops" but the cops don't take his call rightaway, so he decides to break the cellphone, his one and only way to communicate outside (they were locked inside the haunted house)... Really, a painful movie to see.

Rating: * out of **** The straight-to-video market has actually produced a number of quality horror films in the last few years, so no longer should we automatically expect crap from the genre just because it happens to end up on rental shelves first. Quite hyped up by straight-to-video standards, Boo is unfortunately one of the more disappointing films I've seen in recent memory, not nearly the taut, scary experience I'd expected. Heck, it's not even fun to watch, which is the least I'd hope for from a movie about a group of teens stuck in a haunted hospital. What I just mentioned was the gist of the plot, though there's also a subplot about a guy searching for his sister in the hospital but it's about as awkwardly introduced as just about anything else here. Take, for instance, the opening scene, which seems to want to poke fun at the self-conscious horror flicks that once swarmed the market, but it's a scene that fails to produce any tension or laughs. This is indicative of the rest of the film as a whole. Though the movie appears to be a straight-up horror flick, it's hard to tell if there's an underlying layer of self-awareness to the whole thing or if it's just because the acting is so stilted, it's difficult to discern if the cast was even taking the film seriously. That's not to say there aren't already plenty of problems with the plot, the most obvious of which is that rather than playing it in a simple, straightforward manner, the script tacks on some of the most annoying plot devices the genre has to offer, most particularly the girl who has that inexplicable "psychic link" with the hospital. Any time the film looks like it might gain some momentum, this "psychic link" rears its ugly head and brings the pace to a griding halt. But weak as the story is, the acting is definitely worse, with not a single passable performance among the entire cast. They're not even convincing when they're re-animated "ghosts," to the extent that the director even ends up resorting to using reverberating voices to make them sound scary. I'm usually lenient when it comes to quality acting in the genre, but I'm beginning to realize how important competent performances are, seeing as I'd like a character or two to root for or at least someone who genuinely looks terrified by the situation around them. The gore is a mixed bag. Not badly done, but when created with CGI it fails to mesh in well with the more atmospheric approach that director Anthony C. Ferrante is clearly striving for. Though the film mostly fails to deliver, I've got to give the filmmakers credit for achieving a fairly decent sense of atmosphere and a pretty good setting, but that's as far as it goes. Such qualities do little good when the rest of the film is otherwise flat and lacking in scares, suspense, or even a sense of urgency. Worst haunted house flick since Dark Castle's Thirteen Ghosts? Probably so.

I was happy to rent "Boo" after reading that it was from the same producer as "Dog Soldiers," which I found wonderfully relentless. While "Dog Soldiers" is on my list of films to buy, I soon found "Boo" to be tedious. It is the sort of movie I began to watch in bits for it was becoming too aggravating to sit through in one stretch. While I appreciate horror films made on a small budget (and therefore, it can be assumed, made out of a passion for the genre and not a mere eye on box office returns), recent films, such as "Boo," rely on SUDDEN LOUD NOISES to elicit their scare moments. (It's the new 'screeching cat leaping out' gimmick.) This film made me jump once. However, when a film uses a LOUD NOISE or sudden ghost/killer reveal a second time, the impact is usually lessened, and when this happens a THIRD time, and then again, the 'scares' become predictable for the audience now knows the rhythm of the film, that whenever there's a quiet moment, there will be a JOLT, or whenever a character is about to move out of frame, the ghost/killer will be standing there. And really, what suspense can be given to a film when there is an overuse of a creepy little girl suddenly, without actually moving, advancing toward another character, accompanied by A LOUD SOUND. The squeaking, slowly moving wheelchair was much more effective for then a sense of dread was built, a 'What's going to happen?' apprehension. JOLTS just become numbing, and then boring. I can forgive bad acting but there are certain true reactions to which we can all relate and when a character does not REACT the way that we would, that is when the amateurish performance becomes distracting. If my girlfriend/boyfriend or best friend is murdered, my reaction is horror and anger; in this film, there is shock (and one character gets very upset and weepy) but then everyone just seems to gloss over this and resumes looking for a way to escape the hospital. The murder then becomes a mere plot device, another 'reanimated dead' complication for our remaining cast to soon deal with. Great use of a particular costume however, and it's always wonderful to see Dee Wallace Stone on screen.

This movie was a distinct disappointment. The filmmakers had access to a very creepy location but really did nothing with it in the end. The pacing of the movie is very slow and the utter lack of tension in scenes that require it is embarrassing. Add to that the high school drama level acting and you have another waste of money and film. The only good performance came from Dee Wallace Stone and her performance matched to the other "actors" only show how really bad they all are. I really wonder how much was spent on this film and how many shooting days they had? Whatever it was, they misspent it. The chief problem is the director/writer. For a writer of horror film articles, he has little grasp of what is scary and no grasp of film-making. The camera is constantly in the wrong place and his sense of pacing is like molasses. I suggest this one goes in the avoidance column.