Another movie from my childhood is a Disney movie. Every Sunday night, Disney treated people to “The Wonderful World of Disney”. The movie aired back in 1986. I was 7 years old when it came out. I cannot recall if the movie scared me or not. The movie is about a family that moves to a small New England town to set up shop with their Gag City business. The house they move into is haunted by the hamburger face ghoul named, Mr. Boogedy and a sick child named Jonathan. But if the movie Troll scared me, I bet this did too. Mr. Boogedy is truly a fantastic movie. The movie even spawned a sequel, “The Bride of Boogedy”. Was it as good as the first one? No. Not many sequels ever surpass the original.
The movie has some familiar faces. David Faustino starred as Corwin. He went on to play the teenage son, Bud Bundy on “Married With Children”, The other son, R.E., is played by Benji Gregory. After “Mr. Boogedy”, he went on to star in the NBC comedy, “ALF”. John Astin, Kristy Swanson, Mimi Kennedy, and Richard Masur help finish off the cast.
The story begins with a family of five traveling down the road in a van detailed with silly faces, pulling a beat up bug behind it. We come to find out this family is moving to a quaint, New England town aptly named, Lucifer Falls. With a name like that, you can be sure something strange is bound to occur. The daughter, Jennifer (played by Kristy Swanson) isn’t too thrilled about the idea. Moving to a middle of nowhere town with farmers, cows, and no cute boys. Her dad on the other hand, is quite thrilled. Moving to this town will make them the only Gag City franchise for hundreds of miles. Pulling up to the house, no one but the dad is excited about the creepiness of the house. The house always reminded me of the house from Psycho. Looking now, it no way resembles it.
While searching for a light switch, all they find is a humans skull. Jennifer and Eloise are startled to find someone already in their new home. Maybe it’s a ghost, maybe it’s Mr. Boogedy. NO! We are safe. It is only the owner of the historical society, Mr. Neil Witherspoon. (John Astin of The Addams Family) The house came loaded with a dark and tragic history. He doesn’t want anything evil happening to the family. He warns the family to, “GET OUT!” before it’s too late. He doesn’t want them to meet up with the Boogedy Man.
Boogedy! Boogedy! Boogedy! Boo!
Even with the news of ghosts and the Boogedy Man, the family stays. A sign outside the house that says, “Not Really Haunted” explodes and tells the truth about their new house. Jennifer is heading upstairs to her room when she hears someone sneezing. It’s coming from a room at the end of the hall with a blue glow. She opens the door and finds nothing inside. As Corwin and R. E. go in the basement to search for ghost, R.E. finds a rocking chair made just right for his fuzzy teddy bear. Their dad appears at the top of the steps and calls them up for bed. Before they leave, R.E. notices his teddy bear is now missing. They all head out of the basement. The camera zooms on to the tiny rocking chair and it begins to move all by itself. The next morning, the family is enjoying a nice breakfast of plastic eggs. (Eat the eggs!) Jennifer brings up the sneezing noises and claims it is ghost. Eloise (says not to worry. It’s normal for people to hear strange noises coming from an old house. As she goes to drop toast into the toaster, Carlton spooks his wife with some fishing wire and a moving toaster.
Just kidding. Just kidding. Gag City.
That night, Jennifer gets more than she bargains for when she goes towards a room with a green glowing light. There is when she meets up with Mr. Boogedy. After she comes to, she says how she saw Mr. Boogedy. She described him as a hamburger face. No one believes her. They laugh it off and blame Witherspoon for the hi-jinks. The dad goes in the room and finds gooey, green footprints all over a side of the wall. He peels them off and laughs.
Look! The Boogedy man walked all over me!
The following day, the boys get their first encounter when a toaster moves and turns on all by itself. A tea kettle goes off and Boogedy’s laughter fills the room. The two boys hightail it out of there. Finally fed up, the kids head towards the historical society for some answers. To their surprise, Neil Witherspoon works there. He reads from a pop up book and tells the children behind Mr. Boogedy and how he came to be. One of my favorite scenes follows.
The kids arrive home to tell their parents what they learned. Arriving home, the house is dark. Creeping up behind them is their dad in a scary costume. They try to tell mom and dad about the ghosts but they don’t listen. But once the dad says, “This house is not haunted”, the scariness begins. The mummy comes alive and dances. Two rubber gloves rise in the air and clap. The piano plays alone. Still, the dad doesn’t think it’s ghosts. He assumes his kids did it. His wife on the other hand is now a believer. “Time to call a Realtor.” The family sets up camp in the living room. They tell ghost stories and even though the boys are scared, they still manage to drive their older sister crazy. The mother wakes up for a late night snack. As she readies her food, she hears someone tap, tap, tapping at her window. She goes outside and who standing outside her door? Standing in a red glowing aura, is the widow Marion. Eloise is ecstatic. Eloise tries to invite Marion in but learns that Mr. Boogedy has prevented her from entering the house.
Eloise: Would you want to come in and have a cup of coffee?
Marion: (cries)
Eloise: Is it something about coffee, dear? Something that’s painful for ghosts about coffee?
The two mothers bond and Eloise learns that Mr. Boogedy is keeping Marion from seeing her son Jonathan for over 300 years. The only way for the two to reunite is to get rid of Mr. Boogedy. To get rid of his magic cloak. The family arms themselves to defeat the ghost of Boogedy. R. E. separates himself from the group. He heads towards the basement. Corwin notices R.E. is missing and goes to find him. Getting closer to the basement, he hears two people struggling. Corwin goes downstairs and find the ghost of Jonathan and R.E. fighting over the fuzzy teddy bear. Like his mother, he too has a bright aura around him. He reminds the boys of his dad joy buzzers from the shocks they get when they touch him. Jonathan warns the two boys to get out before Boogedy gets to them. If they don’t, they too will be stuck in the house forever. The boys race upstairs to meet back up with their parents. The boys race upstairs to the rest of the family. They shout out, “Boogedy is coming! He’s here!” The family takes cover behind unpacked boxes. The house becomes alive. A light bulb blows up, styrofoam peanut fly in the air, and a final explosion from the fireplace sends the dad ducking for cover.
A plastic amputated hand crawls across the top of the boxes. Eloise gags and knocks it down. Boogedy appears for the 
first time in front of the whole family. Carlton figured he would reason with Boogedy. But Boogedy doesn’t listen to reason. He zaps Carlton, Jennifer, and Eloise with a green bolt of lightning. The boys are on their own. Corwin thinks of a full proof plan. He’s going to steal Boogedy’s cloak after R.E. blows some sneezing powder into Boogedy’s face. Boogedy uses his power to stop the family from ruining his plans. Corwin is stuck in the air, clinging on to small fireplace shovel. His dad tried to rescue him but Boogedy used his powers to freeze him on the ladder. Carlton can’t move passed the first and second step. Mother and daughter are hit with a gust of wind that leaves them struggling to even move. Little R.E. is still free. Pissed at Boogedy, he attacks him with a gag vacuum cleaner. Boogedy is shot with plastic balls. He turns the tables on R.E. and using his magic, puts the balls back into the vacuum. The vacuum, now under Boogedy’s control begins to chase R.E. around. R.E. hides for cover behind some curtains. The vacuum sucks the curtain clean off the rod. With no where to really hid, he takes refuge behind Mr. Boogedy.
The cloak gets stuck inside the hose of the vacuum and starts to suck the cloak off of Boogedy. He’s not too handsome with the cloak on and he’s even uglier when the cloak is off. With no cloak, Boogedy’s powers are gone. Boogedy fades away and all the spells are broken. The girls are released from the revolving wind. Corwin begins to drop down safely to the ground, and Carlton is no longer stuck doing stepping aerobics. R.E. is the hero of the day. The vacuum pops open and the clown inside is holding tightly on the cloak. Corwin grabs the cloak and tosses it in the air. With a wave of his fingers,
Boogedy, Boogedy, Boo!
The cloak vanishes with a green glow. The ghosts of Marion and Johnathan reunite. They thank the family for everything. The family heads out of the room but not with one final scare to end the movie. The vacuum cleaner pops open. Inside this gag cleaner is a cardboard cut out clown. The clown winks and the credits roll.
It really is a fun movie. The sequel (Bride of Boogedy) came out a year later. It was entertaining and had its moments but didn’t live up to the original. Sad part about the movie was some of the actors didn’t return to reprise their roles. Absent in the sequel was, Kristy Swanson, John Astin, and Benji Gregory. Eugene Levy, who stars in the American Pie series played the angry general store owner, Mr. Lynch. Boogedy once again is terrorizing the Davis family. The movie is not on DVD. Several people have started online petitions to bring it to DVD. The movie is on many torrent sites (which you didn’t hear from me). You can find the movie on Ebay for sale but they are all boot legged copies. If you’re not too concerned about the quality, then go buy it. Hopefully one day Disney will get their act together and put this movie on DVD as a box set.
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