Boo (DVD)

...whole Dynamite Jones film than Boo any day! Quite how an actor who clearly enjoyed some success, ends up as a tired, aging cop is a matter for conjecture because, once again, no explanation is offered.

The acting throughout is dire, which only serves to highlight the poor script. The effects are also consistently weak, so much so that the goriest moments are more likely to make you laugh than squirm, as I did, though I doubt that ...
...some poor misguided fool! Finally, it would appear that fact can be as odd as fiction, even in this case, because Boo was nominated for a Saturn award by the Academy of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA, in the category of best DVD release in 2006. The mind boggles!  ... more

“I really should have learned by now!” Those are the words I said to myself when, not too far into watching Boo, I realised that the judgement of my buddy who recommended it was seriously flawed, and not for the first time!

PLOT

The story begins with two young guys (probably supposed to be teens, but you know how it is) who lure two female friends into a supposedly haunted, abandoned hospital on Halloween. The idea being that a third friend has already gone into the hospital to set up scary booby traps to frighten the girls. The hospital turns out to be genuinely haunted, but you’d already guessed that, right? So, a fairly standard no-brainer teen “horror” set up, that ought to have had the right ingredients to be watchable, even if instantly forgettable. It ought to have, but sadly it wasn’t even as good as that! In essence, the rest of the film is about the young ‘uns trying to escape from the hospital whilst some malevolent force tried to stop them, kill them and then possess them!

CAST

I won’t even bother listing the names of the main actors and their characters because, believe me, you won’t have heard of any of them and you won’t care who they play. The only one who seems at all notable is Dig Wayne who plays the jaded cop Arlo Ray Baines; it turns out he had a bit part in Judge Dredd and was also the American lead singer of the British band the JoBoxers, who had a top 40 hit in the 80’s with ‘Just Got Lucky’. He even appeared on Cheggers Plays Pop!

Anthony C. Ferrante is to blame for both the writing and direction and although I’ve never heard of him either, it seems he’s spent most of his career on low budget horrors, trying his hand at everything from writing and direction, as here, to special effects and even make-up! Just to round it off, he’s also had the odd acting role.

MY OPINION

I suspect this film started out as a number of ideas buzzing around the head of Mr. Ferrante, some of which were actually fairly decent and which a skilled writer/director could probably have made into a very creditable addition to the overflowing genre of teen horror. Sadly for all concerned, Mr. Ferrante is not that writer/director. In a genre as clichéd as teen horror, I can look past the clichéd setup and even smile wryly as the various staple elements make their appearance, so I won’t make too much of the lack of originality here – it’s almost a given (I went to the cinema the other week and watched three trailers for horror films with a near identical premise).

The thing that really spoils the already suspect plot is that it’s so bitty, with a whole bunch of ideas crammed in where development of the better ones would have been preferable. For example, the female lead has visions throughout the film, but the origin of this talent isn’t explained. She wears a pendant around her neck which is very similar in design to a logo in her visions of the past of the hospital, but again the relevance is never explained. What was probably the best idea was an attempt to create paranoia amongst the characters in the same way as in The Thing, where anyone could potentially be ‘one of them’. The ‘them’ in this case are the possessed bodies of victims of the spirit in the hospital. The spirit can’t hold these bodies together permanently, so they eventually degrade to slop, earning the nickname ‘drippers’, or some such. However, the writing and direction is so bad that there is no real sense of paranoia. I never once felt the slightest bit of nervous intrigue as to which, if any, of the characters was ‘one of them’.It was pretty much obvious who was and wasn’t and in any event, I didn’t actually care about any of the characters, so it really didn’t matter one way or the other.

In amongst the jumbled plot are some moments that, in another film, could have been genuinely spooky; barely glimpsed figures moving rapidly past in the background and a sinister figure looming behind the characters, but they really don’t do enough to sustain any tension or make this film worth watching. The only character I actually cared about at all is that of Arlo Ray Baines. In a bizarre twist, Baines is a middle-aged cop who, at some time in his past, appeared as Dynamite Jones, the title character in a series of 10 blacksploitation films! We see a clip of one of these films where Jones is confronted by Count Pimpula and, to be honest, I’d sooner have watched the whole Dynamite Jones film than Boo any day! Quite how an actor who clearly enjoyed some success, ends up as a tired, aging cop is a matter for conjecture because, once again, no explanation is offered.

The acting throughout is dire, which only serves to highlight the poor script. The effects are also consistently weak, so much so that the goriest moments are more likely to make you laugh than squirm, as I did, though I doubt that was the aim. Maybe I should applaud the makers endeavour in even attempting ambitious scenes, like those that earn the ‘drippers’ their name, on such a low budget… but I won’t. Even the climactic scene is ridiculous and nonsensical and it crowns an hour and 27 minutes of your life utterly wasted.

I don’t know how much it would cost you to get hold of a copy and I’ve no intention of finding out, lest its low price encourage some poor misguided fool! Finally, it would appear that fact can be as odd as fiction, even in this case, because Boo was nominated for a Saturn award by the Academy of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror Films, USA, in the category of best DVD release in 2006. The mind boggles! 

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