“The Boogeyman”, by Jeff Schiro. A.K.A ” The very first Dollar Baby ever!!!!!”

Before I start to talk about this amazing independent short movie from the 80ths, let me say a few words about the Dollar Baby Deal.

Some of you might know that at the end of this year, December 31th, The Dollar Baby Program will come to an end. Or at least it will be the end of it as we know it. Stephen King announced last year that 2024 would be the last year of this project. A program that started more than 40 years ago and changed the lives of a lot of independent filmmakers and young film students all around the world. A beloved program by the fans, because for the last 4 decades some of them had a chance to watch on the big screen ( or the small one at their hands) different versions from some short stories written by King that never became a long feature.  

Of course, the Dollar Baby Deal had some limitations, like that you could only watch most of these short movies at film festivals. But some short movies came out to light and were watched by millions of fans: some of them were released on VHS and DVD (I got a VCD for the “Disciples of the Crow“, directed by John Woodward that I bought here in Brazil). And, of course, there is YouTube. There are few Dollar Babies that we are able to watch on YouTube,  because some filmmakers just don’t care if they are breaking the rules of the Dollar Baby Deal. And, yes, they can be sued by the King because of it, but some filmmakers just don’t care and post it anyway. God blessed them!

The thing is, The Dollar Baby Program was great, but most of it just for the filmmakers. The fans, most of them, never got the chance to watch the movies, because the best Dollar Babies were never posted on YouTube. I can talk about it as a filmmaker, as a fan and as a guy who has his own Dollar Baby Film Fest.

As a filmmaker, let me tell you that having the chance to film my version of “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” really changed my life. My whole career as an independent filmmaker started with this and another short movie that I shooted and released almost at the same time. But, no matter how many short movies, long features, documentaries and videoclips I did after my Dollar Baby, my short movie based upon a short storye by Stephen King is still the most important project of my career. Why? Because everyone started paying attention to me and my work only after I had a movie based upon a short story by Stephen King to call it my own. And I believe that for most of the Dollar Baby filmmakers it was the same. So, Mr. King,  thank you for more than 40 years of the Dollar Baby Program, it sure was a fun ride that changed our lives.

But Mr. King, hold on a second: as a fan I got to confess that it really pissed me off knowing that there are a bunch of short movies based upon some works of my favourite author that I could never watch! That really pissed me off. Why? I am poor and most of these movies could only be watched at film festivals in America or Europe, the Brazilian film festivals never had Dollar Babies before the pandemic. So, until 2020 I could only watch the ones that are on YouTube and two other Brazilian Dollar Babies, the one that came before me and the one that came after. But the pandemic came and with that the on-line film festivals. At these on-line festivals I could watch some of the best Dollar Babies that exist, such as “Doctor’s Case” from James Douglas, “My Pretty Pony” from Maciej Barczewski,  “Grey Matter” from Red Clark, “Survivor Type” from Bill Hanson aaaaand so many others, the list would go on for many lines. But these four short movies in particular made me wanna screen my own Dollar Baby Film Fest here in Brazil. It has been three years, three editions and so much fun!!!! And the film fest made me became friends with Bernd and Óscar and that brought me here, it gave me the chance to not only write the reviews sharing my thoughts about the Dollar Babies, but but also gave the greatest gift for a Stephen King fan: becoming a member of SKSM gave me access to almost every single Dollar Baby that exist. Because these guys know almost every filmmaker, so now I can reach them and ask to watch their movies in order to screen at the film fest and/or write a review.

But now, some weeks from now, the Dollar Baby Program will be over. There won’t be many more new short movies like these , at least not the ones as we know it. There will probably be “fan movies”, but let’s face it: incredible movies such as “Doctor’s Case” or “Grey Matter” that were expensive movies that needed crowdfunding,  these ones won’t happen again. We hope that one day King himself or Joe Hill or some of his brothers decide to authorize these short movies to happen again. Maybe even Joe Hill starts to allow his own short tales to be adapted too (please God, let that happen, I would be the first in line). But until that or something alike happens, the deal is off.

So, for this reason, we from SKSM decided to make some special things for you guys this December. So, one of the things is that I will write four reviews and release them once a week. And it will be reviewes from the old and classic Dollar Babies. The movies that opened the path for the rest of us, the filmmakers that followed and made other short movies. It is only fair that we pay this homage to them, the original Dollar Baby filmmakers, as a way to also thank them for the four decades of the Dollar Baby Program.

Aaaaand now we can talk about “The Boogeyman” directed by the first Dollar Baby filmmaker EVER: Jeff Schiro!!!!

First of all, let’s make something clear: Yes, “The Boogeyman” is the very first Dollar Baby ever! There is a controversy about it, some people believe that “The Woman in the Room“, by Frank Darabont is the first Dollar Baby, but believe me when I say that it is not and I will explain why: you see, Darabont is most famous DB filmmaker! One of the first ones, the third one actually, and the one that also directed 3 other movies based upon King’s work : Shawshank Redepmption, Green Mile and The Mist. So, he is the most worldwide known filmmaker that shooted a dollar baby, but he was not the first, Jef Schiro is! It was Schiro, John Woodward’s “Disciples of the crow” and then “The Woman in the room” directed by Frank Darabont. The 4th Dollar Baby is probably “Battleground”, the russian animated movie. Although it is not clear if it is an official Dollar Baby, but I will consider and that will also the 4th review I will write this month.

First, second, third… well, it was not a race, so don’t see it as a competition, but do understand that because of these four wonderful short movies, the Dollar Baby Program started. King started to receive a lot of similar requests, so he decided to let them all shoot their movies paying only one dollar in return. I don’t know if the Dollar Baby Program became official after King watched the quality movies that Schiro, Woodward and Darabont presented, but I doubt that King had ever regretted that decision, no matter how many “bad movies” were also released among great ones in the four decades.

The thing is, Jeff Schiro released his “Boogeyman” first, gave a copy to King at King’s door himself and the rest is history. King saw it, liked it and also allowed Schiro to release the movie on vídeo!!!!

What did the King see and liked so much? You can watch it yourself at this page!

And let’s talk about that too.

The very first scene is so cool: it is a dark corridor with only a small beam of light that comes out from an opened door. This light allows us to barely see the main door at the end of the corridor and until the protagonist opens this damn door, we stay apprehensive without knowing why. We can hear some sounds from the door, but they are normal sounds, like someone unlocking it. The guy enters and there is a false sense of relief, because there is a person now with us. But he enters the bright room and once we can not see him anymore we come back to feel apprehensive again. And once again we are without understanding why. The music helps, of course and it is a good OST too. But try to watch this scene without the sound, I bet you will feel the same way. When the protagonist turns off the light, crosses the corridor and enters another door, we find ourselves alone at that corridor staring at a door at the end of it, then we understand why we are apprehensive: it is that damn door! At this simple scene Jeff Schiro shows us that even as a student he was that good, because he is playing with us, showing us what it is to be afraid of the dark, to be afraid that one door opens and something evil comes out. And that is the beauty of this scene, because in short movies we have just a little time to hold the audience’s attention, to introduce the theme and the characters. The first scenes/minutes are very important because of that , so Jeff Schiro really deserved Mr King’s attention and after that the permission to release the movie on vídeo. Thank you, Mr. Schiro!

The screenplay is also something to aplaude at this very first Dollar Baby: it is simple, faithful to the original source but without being afraid to add some new things. For instance, he chose to open the movie not at the psychiatrist’s office, like the original short story. No, he chose to take the audience right at the night of the second murder, when Lester’s daughter dies. We see the Police, the neighbors and we understand that this is not the first time that Lester lost a kid. Theeeen the movie takes us to the psychiatrist’s office. You see, I already had the chance to watch a bunch of versions of this short movie, some of them start at the dinner where Lester goes after he finds one of his kids’ dead bodies. Some other versions start at the psychiatrist’s office, but the way Schiro wrote the screenplay really hooks us. Because at the psychiatrist’s office, we have only Dr. Harper and Lester talking. We hear something like Lester at a confessional because although he did not kill his kids, he feels guilty about it.

That is the way King wrote the story and it works pretty well in a book, but Schiro noticed that if he did not take his chance and adapte the way he did, it could became a boring movie. And if it was a boring movie, maybe we could never have so many Dollar Babies the way we did. So, yes, in the screenplay Schiro played with the linearity of the story and holds our attention almost at every single scene. The only scene that I hated was the one where Lester is drinking and playing crossed words, this scene does not add anything to the story, neither takes the story to somewhere.

Besides this scene, the screenplay is really good. It faithfully adaptes the short story in such an intelligent way during the scenes at the psychiatrist’s office, but the news things also worked pretty well at the story. I really liked the Police officer and the Coroner, these two new characters really added to the story helping to better tell to the audience what happened.

The cinematography and the cast ain’t great, but they aren’t amateur either. I will explain: considering that not only it is a student movie but also it is THE first student movie based upon a Stephen King’s story… a bunch of broken students doing for the first time something that could become huge? That could be a recipe for disaster.

But Schiro and his crew nailed it! The cinematography is not great, but it also doesn’t have that “student look” that we see at so many Dollar Babies. Don’t get me wrong, Bernd and Óscar both did teach me that every single Dollar Baby has at least something good in it, even if it is only the effort. And I do understand that once upon a time I was also learning at my first movies and back then I sucked too, so it is natural that sometimes we see Dollar Babies that look like a student movie, in a very bad way. And during these 4 decades there have been a lot of movies like that. And when that happens, although I try to be comprehensive, sometimes my fan side screams “that it sucks! Do not dare to kill King’s work like that!”. But please try to see it from my point of view: I waited so many years to finally watch the Dollar Babies , so sometimes when I watch a “bad” one I got disapponted. I forget to be professional and ethical and don’t keep my opinion for my self (although I was never rude enough to say that to the filmmakers). 

But Schiro’s movie does not have that amateur look. The cinematography is not amazing, but it sure looks professional. The same way the soundtrack and the actors! Bert Linder gave us a believable Dr Harper, cold and distant most of the time, but he really shines at the end. Michael Reed on the other hand gave us really cool acting. His character was written by King in a way that we hate the guy when we read it. Schiro’s screenplay adapted that well too, but Michael Reed showed his talente and gave us a remarkable Lester Billings: he is ugly (sorry Michael), he is misogynistic, he is sexist, racist and a coward. Exactly like King wrote it, but Schiro really chose his cast well and knew how to get the best from what he had. Michael sometimes is funny, sometimes is pathetic and at other times we just hate that mother fucker. Michael gave us an acting to remember not as a perfect one, but a really fun one to watch and that says something. Everytime I think about this movie I can close my eyes and remember what Michael Reed looks like in it. And that is not something that every movie achieves, short movies and long features. So, once again: thank you, Jeff Schiro.I could stay thanking you for 40 years, Jeff. Thank you so much, man. For opening the path for every single filmmaker that came after you and this first Dollar Baby! We own you a lot!

The short movie’s grade? Well, we from SKSM give “The Boogeyman” 4 fingers from the dead guy’s hand. One finger for each decade that this movie helped make it happen for Stephen King fans and young filmmakers.

See you next time, guys.

Leonardo Granado