One of the Halloween movies I remember really liking from childhood was Mr. Boogedy, a Disney Channel exclusive that I recall looking forward to seeing each year when October rolled around. I have since asked my siblings, and they have no recollection of this whatsoever, so maybe I just saw it on my own twice, and that seemed like “each year.” Time is weird in your memory.
In any case, I’d debated watching the movie with my family for quite some time, but I always held back, because in my mind, this was a genuinely scary movie. I worried it would be too much for MC. But a few days ago, I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a shot, giving my family a long preamble about how if it was too scary, we could turn it off.
I have now lost all credibility for judging scary movies with my family.
Friends, this movie was absolutely, unreservedly, truly horrible. I gave it a 2/10, and the only reason it didn’t get a 1 was out of deference to 10 year old me thinking it was good. I can’t think of a single thing about the movie that I liked. I suppose it’s bad enough that you could watch it again for laughs, but . . . ugh. So bad.
It’s 45 minutes, which I suppose is a blessing right there. It tells the tale of a family of five, whose parents run a practical joke store. They plan to move to New England, and the dad buys a house that’s a fixer upper. They get there, and the house is clearly 100% haunted. I mean, lightning flashing, cobwebs everywhere, falling apart haunted. The realtor even meets them in the house and tells them it’s haunted. We get some back story of Mr. Boogedy, who was an evil pilgrim of some sort who got a magic cloak that made him invincible, and he decided to use it to make a pilgrim woman fall in love with him, and . . .
Forget it. There’s no use describing it. It doesn’t make any sense, anyway.
The special effects are awful. The set design is terrible. I think the pilgrim outfits were made out of construction paper. The acting is abysmal. And it is most definitely not scary at all. It’s too horrendous to be. There is nothing redeeming about this show at all. And yet somehow it got a sequel, Bride of Boogedy . . .
The film somehow has a 6.5 rating on IMDB, with a bunch of people saying the same thing I did: that they loved it as a kid. Maaaaaybe if you’re under the age of 10, this could be a good gateway film to scarier movies? I have no idea anymore. All I know is that a favorite childhood memory is now pretty much ruined, and it’s all Mr. Boogedy’s fault.
I’ll get over it. I think.