''Don't Look Under the Bed'' is a
made-for-TV
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by
Kenneth Johnson. It was released on October 9, 1999, as a
Disney Channel Original Movie
Many television films have been produced for Disney Channel, an American family-oriented basic cable channel and former premium television channel since its launch on April 18, 1983. Until October 1997, films were released under the banner nam ...
(DCOM).
Plot
Frances Bacon McCausland (
Erin Chambers
Erin Chambers (born September 24, 1979) is an American actress, best known for her role as Siobhan McKenna Spencer on ABC soap opera '' General Hospital''. She has made guest appearances in a number of television shows.
Personal life
Chambers ...
), an intelligent and level-headed girl, is starting high school a year early. Strange things have been going on in her town of Middleberg: dogs appearing on people's roofs, alarm clocks going off hours early, eggs all over a teacher's car, gelatin in the school swimming pool, and the letter "B" spray-painted all over town. The Bs also appear on the school lockers—except for Frances', which has a B on the inside. These pranks seem to point to Frances, who does not understand what is happening or why. An older boy named Larry Houdini (Eric "Ty" Hodges II) offers to help Frances, telling her that he is an imaginary friend, which is proven true as children are the only other people who can see him. Larry tells Frances that she is being framed by the
Boogeyman
The Bogeyman (; also spelled boogeyman, bogyman, bogieman, boogie monster, boogieman, or boogie woogie) is a type of mythic creature used by adults to frighten children into good behavior. Bogeymen have no specific appearance and conceptions var ...
. Frances has a difficult time believing this.
The Boogeyman causes a blackout, foreshadowed by the Bs he spray-painted; however, the McCausland home is unaffected, with all its Christmas lights remaining on. Frances then loses her friendship with her best friend Joanne, makes a fool out of herself trying to convince others that Larry exists, and causes her family to question her sanity. At her wits end, Frances checks out ''The Boogey Book'' from the library for Larry, who decides to build a temptrifuge detailed in the book which will age the Boogeyman into a harmless old geezer. Frances later learns Larry was her brother Darwin's imaginary friend, who still cares about him, but Frances convinced Darwin to grow up and stop believing in him. Larry also cooks up Boogey Goo to use as bait and finds it delicious, which scares Frances. She looks for Boogeyman origins in the book, learning that a Boogeyman is created when the creator of an imaginary friend stops believing too soon.
Having accidentally stepped in Boogey Goo, Darwin attracts the Boogeyman and gets kidnapped while sitting in Frances' room. Frances and Larry follow him to the Boogeyworld dimension, which exists underneath Frances' bed. During the skirmish, Larry turns into a Boogeyman due to Darwin's lack of belief in him, while the other Boogeyman drags Darwin towards a cliff. However, Frances convinces Darwin to believe in Larry again, reverting him to normal. After using the temptrifuge on the Boogeyman, Frances realizes it is her old imaginary friend, Zoe. Frances stopped believing in her when Darwin fell ill, deciding it was time to grow up. Frances proves she still cares about Zoe, holding her hand and causing her to revert to normal. Frances and Darwin return to the real world, where her parents reveal the same antics that occurred in Middleburg are occurring in another city. Larry reveals that "the guy in his head" just ordered him to go take care of the other Boogeyman; Zoe offers to assist as she was rather inexperienced as a Boogeyman and was thus easy to fight.
Frances is distraught as it was not easy for her to believe in them again. Before Larry and Zoe leave, Larry tells Frances its alright showing her that childhood was great, but so is adulthood if she keeps a sense of wonder. He then turns on the Christmas lights outside, allowing him and Zoe to leave. That night, Darwin is scared and is sent to Frances by Larry; she allows him to sleep with her. Larry and Zoe watch this with smiles.
Cast
*
Erin Chambers
Erin Chambers (born September 24, 1979) is an American actress, best known for her role as Siobhan McKenna Spencer on ABC soap opera '' General Hospital''. She has made guest appearances in a number of television shows.
Personal life
Chambers ...
as Frances Bacon McCausland.
*
Eric "Ty" Hodges II as Larry Houdini, Darwin’s imaginary friend.
*
Robin Riker
Robin Riker (born October 2, 1952) is an American actress and author. She made her big screen debut in the 1980 horror film ''Alligator'' and later went to star in the Showtime comedy series '' Brothers'' (1984–1989).
Riker had starring roles ...
as Karen McCausland, Frances' mother.
*
Steve Valentine
Stephen John Valentine (born 26 October 1966) is a Scottish actor and magician. He is known for his roles as Nigel Townsend on NBC's crime drama series ''Crossing Jordan'', the voice of Harry Flynn in the video game '' Uncharted 2: Among Thieve ...
as
Boogeyman
The Bogeyman (; also spelled boogeyman, bogyman, bogieman, boogie monster, boogieman, or boogie woogie) is a type of mythic creature used by adults to frighten children into good behavior. Bogeymen have no specific appearance and conceptions var ...
, the film's antagonist.
* Jake Sakson as Darwin McCausland, Frances' younger brother.
*
Stephen Tobolowsky
Stephen Harold Tobolowsky (born May 30, 1951) is an American character actor. He is known for film roles such as insurance agent Ned Ryerson in ''Groundhog Day'' and amnesiac Sammy Jankis in '' Memento'', as well as such television characters as ...
as Michael McCausland, Frances' father.
* Nathan Stevens as Albert "Bert" McCausland, Frances and Darwin's older brother.
* RuDee Lipscomb as Joanne Smith, Frances' best friend, later former.
*
Rachel Kimsey
Rachel Kimsey is an American actress. She holds a BFA from Brigham Young University, which she earned in 2000.
Career
Kimsey portrayed Mackenzie Browning on the soap opera ''The Young and the Restless'' beginning in March 2005 but was let go f ...
as Zoe, the old imaginary friend of Frances.
*Maddie lambert
Production
Filming took place in Utah, in 1999. The Boogeyman's world consisted of a set that was custom-built in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
, and scenes set at Frances' school were shot at Ogden High School in
Ogden, Utah
Ogden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau, making it Utah's eighth ...
.
The Boogeyman was originally scarier in early concept drawings. According to the film's director,
Kenneth Johnson, the character "was really dark and
adquills sticking out. It was nightmarish. I said, 'Why don't we take him more Victorian and let's have his dialogue be limerick-like and make it a little bit lighter."
[ Eric "Ty" Hodges II, a black actor, portrayed Larry, who was not written as a black character in the script. According to Johnson, Disney was concerned about "having a black boy kiss a white girl" at the film's ending, stating, "They asked me to do it a couple of different ways, including not really at all. I fought for it." Disney ultimately allowed the kiss scene to stay in the film, and Johnson said the scene "is exactly the way I had always intended to do it."][ In the film's original script, the ending involved Frances and Larry using the tetra-fuse to get rid of the Boogeyman, but Johnson stated that the ending was changed so Frances would defeat the Boogeyman herself.]
Release and reception
''Don't Look Under the Bed'' premiered on Disney Channel
Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...
on October 9, 1999.[ It was the second DCOM to receive a ]TV-PG
The TV Parental Guidelines are a television content rating system in the United States that was first proposed on December 19, 1996, by the United States Congress, the television industry and the federal communication commission (FCC), and went ...
rating, due to its scary scenes.[ According to Johnson, "There were a number of meetings where we'd talked about the tone and what isneywanted it to be — scary but not too scary. That's the bar we kept trying to find. Everybody thought we had hit it until they started getting derogatory mail after it aired."][ Due to complaints from parents who found the film to be too scary for young children, Disney Channel ceased annual rebroadcasts of it during the month of October after 2006. It is now available for streaming on ]Disney+
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and deligh ...
.
In 2012, ''Complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
'' ranked the film at number 19 on the magazine's list of the 25 best DCOMs. In May 2016, Aubrey Page of Collider
A collider is a type of particle accelerator which brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators.
Colliders are used as a research tool in particle ...
ranked each DCOM released up to that point, placing ''Don't Look Under the Bed'' at number 20 and writing that the film "remains in the DCOM history books for one reason: it's scary as hell." That month, ''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' ranked the film at number 27 on a list of the 30 best DCOMs.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Don't Look Under The Bed
1999 horror films
1999 television films
1999 films
1999 fantasy films
1990s psychological thriller films
1990s teen horror films
1990s children's fantasy films
Disney Channel Original Movie films
Films shot in Utah
American supernatural horror films
Films directed by Kenneth Johnson (producer)
Films scored by Daniel Licht
1990s English-language films
1990s American films