Did I not actually watch any movies over October that took place on Halloween? Is this really the first movie to have the “Halloween” tag? Huh. Anyway, my Movie Night group tends to watch horror movies, so it was inevitable that I’d watch a Halloween movie outside of October. I guess next year I’ll try to add a few more seasonally themed horror movies to my list; but enough about plans 11 months out. Let’s talk about Boo!, a lackluster horror flick. Happy belated Halloween!
Boo! is not actually a horror comedy, despite what you would think by the inclusion of an exclamation point in its title. No, it takes itself very seriously, even when the characters are freaking out because they got “booed.” The story follows a dysfunctional family ruled by a religious fundamentalist father who doesn’t celebrate Halloween. A letter gets dropped off at their house on All Hallows’ Eve saying if they don’t copy it and send it to two other houses, their pasts will come to get them. Yes, the plot really is about an evil chain letter. Dad doesn’t go for it, so the whole family is beset upon by evil. The daughter once tried to kill herself, so voices tell her to kill herself and her family. The mom had a miscarriage, so she’s tortured by visions of blood and crying babies. The dad once threw firecrackers at what he claims was a bully, so a child with a bowtie and no eyes is coming for him. Seriously, the kid looks like he’s wearing lederhosen and I want to beat him up and take his lunch money. And the son… He’s a whole mess from start to finish. He’s the one convinced at the beginning that not following the “boo” was a mistake. So he’s the superstitious one, right? Well maybe, but the movie demonstrates this by having his bedroom walls plastered with drawings of monsters and mutilations, with the occasional doll with its eyes stabbed out thrown in for good measure. Holy shit. So it’s not that big a surprise that when the rest of the family rallies together to fight back against the supernatural evil, he falls prey and burns their house down, killing everyone else. Probably should’ve sent him to therapy.
I always feel bad when a movie is so underwhelming in a mundane way that I don’t really have anything else to say about it. There’s nothing exciting or interesting about this. It’s just another mediocre horror film to throw up on Tubi and hope that ads will bring in enough money to justify its existence (joke’s on you, cause I have ad blocker). It’s slow paced, the characters have only one trait and that’s all there is to them, and this is just something you should avoid. Granted, I’d recommend it over Boo! A Madea Halloween, but that’s a very, very low bar.
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