The Boogens is what happens when you dig too deep — not into the earth, but into the bargain bin of creature feature scripts that should have stayed buried. The movie’s premise is simple: open an old silver mine, unleash monsters that look like what would happen if a snapping turtle mated with a Roomba, and hope the audience doesn’t notice you’re basically just filming people wandering around dark tunnels until something rubbery attacks them.
Plot? Barely. Pacing? Don’t Ask.
A construction crew reopens a long-closed mine in Colorado, inadvertently unleashing the “Boogens,” which are supposed to be ancient, bloodthirsty predators. Unfortunately, they have all the menace of a wet bathmat. The kills are spaced out so far apart you could make a sandwich, eat it, take a nap, and still come back before anything happens. The “suspense” consists mainly of endless shots of mine carts, dusty helmets, and characters making poor life choices.
The Monsters: Low Budget, Lower Standards
The Boogens themselves are barely shown, which is probably for the best, because when you do get a look at them, they resemble the kind of hand puppets you’d find in a 1970s cereal box giveaway. Imagine an old sea turtle with fangs, wearing a bad Halloween wig, and you’re close. They pop out of holes in the ground like homicidal Whac-A-Moles, except slower, and somehow less threatening.
Characters You Won’t Miss
The film gives us a couple of romantic subplots, some buddy banter, and a dog who, spoiler alert, meets a fate more tragic than any of the human cast — because the dog is the only character you actually care about. Everyone else is generic early-’80s horror filler: the plucky heroine, the nice-but-boring guy, and a couple of disposable friends whose job is to wander into the mine after dark despite clear warnings not to.
Horror Without the Horror
Even by creature feature standards, The Boogens is shockingly tame. There’s minimal gore, no real scares, and the tension level hovers somewhere between “waiting for toast to pop” and “watching paint dry, but underground.” You keep expecting a big, terrifying reveal… and what you get is a glorified snapping turtle on strings.
Final Verdict
The Boogens is a masterclass in how to make monsters boring. It’s the kind of movie you put on at 2 a.m. because you can’t sleep, only to find you still can’t sleep because the sheer lack of excitement is somehow energizing in the worst way. The 4K Blu-ray release in 2024 is baffling — not because the movie deserves it, but because now you can see the rubber seams on the monster costumes in even greater detail.
If you’re looking for a creature feature that’s scary, thrilling, or even mildly engaging, keep digging. Just don’t dig in this mine — the only thing you’ll unearth is disappointment.
Cast Rebecca Balding as Trish Michaels Fred McCarren as Mark Kinner Anne-Marie Martin as Jessica Ford Jeff Harlan as Roger Lowrie John Crawford as Brian Deering Med Flory as Dan Ostroff Jon Lormer as Blanchard Scott Wilkinson as Deputy Greenwalt Production
