The Boogey Man is a 1980 American supernatural slasher film written and directed by Ulli Lommel, and starring Suzanna Love, John Carradine, and Ron James.

The film's title refers to the long-held superstition of boogeymen beings, and its plot concerns two siblings who are targeted by the ghost of their mother's deceased boyfriend which has been freed from a mirror.

Lacey suffers from nightmares and has a particularly frightening dream where she is dragged, tied to a bed, and almost stabbed by an unseen entity.

Shortly after, the teenage girls and their brother are all violently killed by an unseen force; the vengeful spirit of the deceased lover has been released from the mirror.

A shard from the shattered mirror becomes stuck to Lacey's son's shoe and is left on the ground where the light refracts across a lake where a group of teenagers are partying by an abandoned house.

Before he dies, the priest removes the shard from Lacey's eye, releasing her from the ghost's control, and throws it into the kitchen sink, where it bursts into flames as it touches the water.

[4] Stylistically, Lommel stated that he wanted to make a "movie about outrageous killings set in an average-looking environment with ordinary actors.

[5] Filming took place on location in the Waldorf, Maryland area,[6] with additional photography occurring in Los Angeles, California.

[1] The film was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by The Jerry Gross Organization with screenings beginning on November 14, 1980.

[9] Garry Arnold from The Washington Post wrote in his review on the film: "The Boogey Man achieves a certain vicious distinction by putting the occasional spectacular kink in an otherwise motley fabric".

[10] Ron Cowan of The Statesman Journal criticized the film for boasting "little originality in storyline or style, relying instead on the sheer energy and determination it brings to bloodletting".

The Boogey Man mixes a bit of sex with standard shock devices, primordial fears and Freudian jealousies.

[17] In the United Kingdom, The Boogey Man was placed on the DPP list in 1984, but was later re-released on the Vipco label in 1992 in a cut form.

Lacey travels to Hollywood, to the home of a film director (played by Ulli Lommel himself), where she brings along the last surviving haunted mirror shard from the end of the first movie as proof to her horrifying experiences.

The new storyline was developed after test audiences in the US and Europe saw various cuts of a series of plot-possibilities and characters entitled Boogeyman: Reincarnation.