Freddy Krueger. Jason. Hannibal Lecter. A stand-out villain can elevate a substandard movie to legendary status. The opposite, however, is also true: a bland villain makes a screenwriter’s best efforts fall. It doesn’t get much blander than a “boogeyman” – a generic term for a generic monster.

Morbid curiosity got the better of me when I decided to review this movie. I have to say that the advertising group made a wise decision in not showing the “boogeyman” in trailers or I would have lost total interest. Perhaps mercifully, it was next to impossible to find a picture or a description of this creep that sits in children’s closets. There was really nothing to be found, and I hoped that the “hero” wouldn’t just be staring at a closed door the whole time. Even if this movie was low budget, they had to be able to afford a scary costume or CGI after getting the less-than-popular Barry Watson to take front stage.

From the start, I realized that it was going in the same plot direction as previous horror clunker “Darkness Falls.” A child loses one of his parents to some supernatural force, and years later he must confront the demon he has fled from for so long. Except in this one, you don’t see the boogeyman in the beginning, and the boy is not afraid of the dark, just closets (which opens doors for all sorts of other jokes.)

Now you may wonder where this movie goes from here. Does somebody from his hometown call him, imploring him to come back to tie up loose ends and such? Well you guessed right and inevitably he must face his fears and save the world.

Our hero returns home and meets a little girl who no one else will acknowledge (maybe that part is key) and when he is finally alone in the house, he starts freaking himself out. Then he finds the little girl’s backpack, filled with missing children bulletins. Now I get it! The “boogeyman” is to blame for all the missing children around the world. Hell, let’s pin the missing socks, hamsters that runaway during summer camp, and bank robberies on him as well!

When it comes to the ending, I could tell you that Michael Jackson plays the “boogeyman” and it wouldn’t make a difference to the plot. While the film had something of a thrill factor towards the end, the story lacks due to boredom and poor acting from Watson who predicts his own career’s future at the end by saying, “Yeah, It’s over!” With any luck, this is the same attitude that will be applied to whole “Boogeyman” franchise.