The Boogey Man, largely filmed in Maryland, hits theaters on November 7, 1980


The Blair Witch Project may be the most financially successful horror movie filmed in Maryland, but it's not the only one. November 7, 1980 saw the nationwide release of The Boogey Man, most of which was filmed in Southern Maryland. Many film critics dismissed it at the time because it arrived among a cacophony of Halloween knockoffs at the dawn of the 80s. And while Hollywood's burgeoning interest in the slasher genre certainly helped the movie get made and distributed widely, The Boogey Man took a much more novel approach than another lumbering stabber stalking teenagers.

The choice of title was probably the biggest mistake, as it suggested exactly such a tired scenario, and was literally one of the descriptives applied to Michael Myers in the John Carpenter vehicle that started the whole damn thing in 1978. Because the true villain in The Boogey Man isn't a man at all. It's a mirror. A mirror that's seen things. And when that mirror is shattered twenty years later, a lot worse than seven years' bad luck comes of it.

Suzanna Love is the star of the film, and her performance as Lacey is impressive enough to dismiss any thought that she was cast only by virtue of being the director's wife. That director, New German Cinema movement veteran Ulli Lommel, brought an arthouse sensibility to an often ham-handed and superficial genre. Lommel employed little-known actors for most of the roles in The Boogey Man, but reserved one for a true Hollywood legend, John Carradine. Yes, Count Dracula himself is in the house, if only for a short time.

Speaking of houses, that's where Southern Maryland comes in. Most of the film was shot at locations around Waldorf and La Plata. The home from which the movie's terror emerges was at 105 Oak Avenue in La Plata. That home is the historic Smoot House, named for its builder and owner, David Smoot. He is credited with opening the first hotel in the town in 1892.

Not far away in beautiful Bel Alton was the home that served as that of Lacey's aunt and uncle, at 8595 Neptune Lane. St. Ignatius Church - and its cemetery - at 8855 Chapel Point Road in Port Tobacco was also utilized.

The Boogey Man isn't just a monster under the bed, it’s the whisper in the dark, the thing that exploits your guilt, your fear, and your deepest regrets. And it chose a mirror as its prison, a everyday object that we all look into, expecting to see ourselves, but sometimes, just sometimes, you see something else. Something that isn't you. Something that wants in. Because the shards of a broken mirror can hold a piece of the soul. They become portals, little windows into a place where the ordinary rules don't apply. Where the dead don't stay dead.

It's raw, it's weird, it's the kind of flick that makes you check the mirrors in your house afterward—not for monsters, but for the man staring back who might just be one. So don’t look in the mirror for too long. You never know what might be looking back from the other side.

Location: La Plata, MD 20646, USA

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