Boo Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A group of teens spend their Halloween trapped in an abandoned hospital as they become possessed by a malevolent spirit hellbent on living again.

Review: Sad to say, but there really aren't that many horror movies that take place on Halloween, and this is the last one I could track down; there are a few more out there but are a pain in the ass to get a hold of. I guess watch some kid's movies? Anyway, this movie starts off decent enough and almost tricks you into believing this could be good, but with such a stupid title like "Boo" you just knew this was going to suck, and this film does not disappoint in that regard. Is it really this difficult to make an entertaining horror movie about Halloween? And much like the "Night of the Demons" franchise, Halloween contributes so little to the plot to the point that this film could have taken place any other night of the year; it merely serves as a contrived reason why the kids go to the hospital, but you could have easily substituted the plot point with it's a dare or initiation prank or whatever.

The story should have been straightforward given the idiotic nature of the plot, but they couldn't leave it at that and had to make it as convoluted as possible. Things start off simple enough with a group of friends going to some abandoned hospital on Halloween where another friend was trying to set up some gags. Supposedly this place is haunted after some fire years ago, and they say to stay away from the third floor--oh no, so ominous! Seemingly for the sake of annoying me, the main girl has some ill-defined psychic powers where she thinks she is communicating with her dead mom and some of the ghosts, and it really makes so little sense. I kept thinking that surely this retarded plotline will help save the day, but it doesn't and the mama drama plays no part unless I missed something; I have to admit this was another one of those pieces of shit boring me to the point I had to watch it in intervals. For some reason you don't know when you're being possessed by the ghosts until you start oozing ectoplasm or something and you have to be wounded first anyway. Honestly, it plays out nonsensically, the acting sucks, and the characters react predictably when they're in danger. Because the cliched nature of the main group wasn't enough to pad out the film, they added some random bullshit about a guy looking for his sister and getting help from some former actor turned detective with a backstory we never understand. So the main evil ghost was some child molester or something who killed a little girl that also haunts the hospital, but then there is also the nurse that died stopping the evil guy from escaping in the first place when he set the initial fire that closed the hospital down. The dumbest part is how the dead body of the little girl is just chilling out in some closet as if no one would have found (or smelled) her there. Then the main girl proposes the most asinine of ideas that she should try and "scare" the evil ghost into being afraid to live again. Ugh...are you fucking kidding me?! Yeah, you get right on that, hun. This kind of works...I guess...but there's something about the ghost of the nurse blocking him from escaping anyway as the few survivors escape and the ghost plans to wait for more victims some day like this is some kind epic battle of good versus evil (which it most assuredly is not).

I feel like they were trying to tell a grander story than they realized, because something went wrong here. There were bouts of potential strewn about, and I genuinely liked the first 20 minutes or so and had some hope for this movie before it came to a crashing halt. The notion that you could be turning evil without realizing it was interesting in theory, and invoked a sense of paranoia similar to "The Thing," but they failed to see it through and the delivery was lacking. Pretty much every other plot element felt like a mishmash of bullshit that did not have cohesion with the overall premise. The acting is hilariously bad from a few, the effects are an array of decent to garbage, and the flow of the story is too boring with moments of standing around talking because clearly the sets were too small to involve excessive amounts of running about. I obviously don't recommend this even if you're craving some Halloween-themed films. I read other reviews saying how good this movie was, and I have no idea what on earth they were talking about. And seriously, trying to scare a ghost and make him afraid of living is maybe one of the dumbest plotlines I have ever heard of, and I'm not exaggerating one bit. I wanted to punch someone so badly when the main girl said that, and that's not a good reaction you want out of your audience.

Notable Moment: I guess when we see the comical 70s movies one of the characters was meant to have starred in under his alter ego, Dynamite Jones. It made for an interesting plot element although amounts to jack shit since it never contributes at any moment.

Final Rating: 4.5/10