BAD GIRL BOOGEY: Enticing ingredients in an otherwise undercooked stew

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of the “mask”.  A “covering” that simultaneously possesses the potential to be fiercely symbolic or inherently preposterous. It may inspire further attitudes and attributes. Its influence may know no bounds. There’s no doubt, however, that the wearer could stand out in any context or spectrum.

I used to see it in binary terms, a dance (or battle) between the private and public persona. The concealed one (often a source of mental trauma) may be more truthful than the one we all see (ironically masking the truth).

While the film suffers from a good deal of issues, the stroke of genius in Alice Maio Mackay‘s Bad Girl Boogey is how she deconstructs the notion of duality through the prism of gender fluidity, and creates a more complex, non-binary approach to identity under captivity of such a mask.

Bad Girl Boogey follows a group of teenage outcasts – relegated to the margins in many respects – who find themselves targeted by a sadistic, stalking killer bearing an unusually supernatural-tinged mask around Halloween time. However, the mask’s demonic hold isn’t limited to a single entity per se, as it spreads like a contagion from the wearer to the wearer, consuming them fully to the point of maddening sadism. Our protagonist, Angel (Lisa Fanto) lost her own mother to murder on a Halloween night, while engaging in a ritual (or seance). Finding a connection between the mysterious mask, the recent murders in her circle, and her mother’s death, Angel must band together with her friends in order to end the “body count”.

For all the inventiveness and positive work that Alice Maio Mackay‘s film boasts, it manages a rather frustrating juggling act that may affect what each viewer takes away from the proceedings. On the one hand, amidst the themes of accountability, trauma, and vengeance, lies a pensive character (ensemble) study mashed with the underlying coming-of-age angle. On the other, a subversion of the by-the-numbers formula that dominated the era of classic slasher cinema.

While there is stunning photography, some great visual nods to classic cinema (the “Weimar Era” reference), and beautiful ’80s-inspired neon lighting, the film’s limited budget shows. The acting can be engaging and strong (as is the case with Fanto) but otherwise, there is a tedious c*cktail mixing bland consomme with a plate of “green eggs & hamming it up”. The music video approach to montage can be tedious (especially with occasional repetition of the same footage) with truly nauseating, emo-flavoured songs utilised to “mickey mouse” its way to our emotions.

Plus the clunky dialogue features a shit-dump of exposition (unfortunately the parts with the lore and origin of the mask).

However, I still believed in the characters. Why? Because the emotions still resonated with me, and the film’s ideas and lore are still intriguing enough that the characters may be viewed as allegorical symbols as part of a larger fabric reminding me of  James Mangold‘s Identity.

With horror fiction, it’s almost a given that us readers and viewers would automatically empathise and/or sympathise with the “Other” and/or the “Monster”. Boogey ironically accomplishes both.

Each murder victim may or may not have been slain by persons who were enslaved and “brainwashed” by the mask (not unlike Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). But is it by choice where the mask feeds our darkest impulses (like in Kaneto Shindo‘s Onibaba)? Or is it completely out of their hands? The latter would be obvious, given that no one necessarily wants a demonic mask to turn them into monsters, but it still adds further confusion to Angel and company.

Each character has his/her/their own identity, and the idea of the masked killer who could be anyone of them, but possessed by a ghoulish entity they once refer to as “It” until they figure out who it is under the mask. But what if “It” reigns supreme so there is no room for any identity other than “It?”.

Bad Girl Boogey may not be a great film (and one can forgive it for its low-budget limitations), but it has the ambition and heart to pursue a whole new lore that could potentially be up there with the likes of Wes Craven‘s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sHcZ09myxY

Watch Bad Girl Boogey