There is no escape from The Boogens on September 25, 1981


It was a cold, cruel little movie, a real meat-and-potatoes fright flick, the kind they don't seem to make anymore. Not that they couldn't, mind you. They just don't. 

The year was 1981, a good year for horror if you were brave enough to go looking for it. Your local movie house was full of monsters—some in the woods (The Evil Dead), some in the desert (The Hills Have Eyes Part 2), and even some in the local hospital (Halloween II). But on September 25th, an independent little creature feature with a dumb name showed up. The title card probably made a few people snicker into their popcorn. The Boogens.

The Boogens crawled out of the shadowy corners of the drive-in circuit like something unearthed from a forgotten mine shaft. Which, fittingly enough, is exactly where its terrors began.

Picture this: Silver City, Colorado, a nowhere town with a shuttered silver mine, sealed up tighter than a mummy’s tomb after a massacre a hundred years back. The kind of place where the wind howls secrets, and the locals don’t talk about that one time in 1912 when something went wrong—real wrong.

Many decades later, a couple of college grads, Mark and Roger, show up with their girlfriends, Trish and Jessica, to reopen the mine. They’re young, they’re cocky, they’re thinking more about beer and fooling around than the fact that they’re poking a stick into a hornet’s nest of history. But when they blast open those tunnels, they let something loose. Something with too many legs, too many teeth, and a hunger that’s been brewing for a century.

The Boogens is a love letter to the drive-in flicks of the ‘50s, the kind where you’d spill your popcorn all over the floorboards when the monster finally showed its face. Except this time, it’s 1981, and the world’s still reeling from Halloween and Friday the 13th. The film itself has that gritty, unpolished feel that so many great horror movies of that era possessed. The acting isn't always Shakespearean, the special effects aren't going to win any Oscars, but that's part of its charm. It feels real. It feels like something that could happen. 

And then there are the creatures themselves. The "Boogens." They're not your typical slasher villain, all masked and machete-wielding. They're something…primeval. Something that slithers and scratches and lurks in the darkness. They embody that fear of the unknown, the things that dwell beneath our feet, forgotten by man, waiting for their chance to claw their way back to the surface. It taps into that primal fear of caves, of enclosed spaces, of what might be hiding just beyond the next turn in the tunnel. It’s the kind of fear that makes the hair on your arms stand up when you’re exploring an old, dusty attic, or when you hear a strange noise in the basement late at night.

The titular Boogens are...well, they're something. Like watching The Muppet Show on LSD. But the movie wisely keeps them in the shadows for most of the running time, letting the fear of the unknown do all the heavy lifting. The less you see, the scarier it is. When they do finally show up, they're goofy, but still menacing enough to get the job done. The real horror isn't the rubber monster, it's the idea of the monster, the sound of something shuffling just out of sight.

What made The Boogens so effective, even with its limitations, was its setting. The isolated Colorado mining town, a place that feels like it’s forgotten by the rest of the world. It’s got that small-town flavor, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and nothing bad ever happens. Or so they think. The mine scenes? Claustrophobic as a coffin. The snowy backdrop? Makes you feel like there’s nowhere to run.

Back in ‘81, The Boogens was up against giants. Halloween II. The Evil Dead. An American Werewolf in London. Once its letters had been taken down from drive-in theater signs across America, it would be on late nights on HBO that it would really gain its cult fan base. Yet, unbelievably, it never got a release on home video until 1997, forgoing what might have been an incredible and profitable run on VHS during the 80s.

But that’s the thing about The Boogens—it’s a survivor. Like its titular creatures, the movie has stood the test of time. And here you are reading about it all these decades later.

So, the next time you're feeling brave, or perhaps a little nostalgic for the rough-hewn scares of yesteryear, track down The Boogens. Pop it in, dim the lights, and let yourself be transported back to September 25th, 1981. That scratching sound? I'm sure it's just your VCR.

Location: Colorado, USA

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