While i don’t want to preventively brand any horror movie releasing in January as “filler”…. this is clearly a holdover of last year’s that Lionsgate put out now in theathers, without much fanfare.
Funnily enough, it’s not even that bad of a film.
It’s the typical “boogeyman bingo” story, with a mother/father thas has to confront something dark from his past before it can harm its child, in this case “Bagman”, dubbed as such by the father, Patrick, that encountered it once before, and now seems to be back to stalk his family, especially his son Jake, etc etc.
I was ready to joke about how the parents are so stupid they might as well wear t-shirts with “postnatal abortion supporter” written on it.. but they’re not even that dumb, to be honest, the promise has some potential, it’s technically well put together, but.. it’s also EXACTLY the kind of movie you get from the “The [noun/adjective] Man” joke.
On the positive side it’s not boring, it’s short, the acting is decent, there is some ok atmosphere to it all, i kinda like the villain…but the pacing is all over the place, the plot just kinda scatters about, the jumpscares are limp, the characters just eventually become too conviently stupid even for the genre, and you’ll more likely be startled and annoyed by sudden deafining bullshit, like the one the kid makes with its forsaken flute.
Honestly, it’s about what i expected going on, though there was actually something to work off with here to actually make for a ok or decent film, but it all gets lost in generic horror tropes and cliches.
I will have to go with a “slightly subpar” rating because it’s too generic and doesn’t really add anything worthwhile or novel to the bogeyman formula.
Wise Cafe (International) 