Three decades passed between the 10-year-old me being intrigued by the TV ads for The Boogens and actually being able to see the film. I wasn’t disappointed, because the little horror film is pretty solid. I should have expected as much, considering how many images from those 30-second commercials never left my mind. They were exactly as I remembered them.

The opening credits rely the backstory through vintage newspaper front pages: A small town in the Colorado Rockies briefly was a pay-dirt place for mining silver … until the “attacks” happened, and the mines were closed. Years later, they’re reopened, and the dynamite unleashes the Boogens — creatures that look like the evil spawn of a turtle and a giant spider, with tentacles spiked at the end for maximum neck-slashing action.

Although largely unseen until the picture’s end, the monsters take shelter in the basement of a house into which two young, virile hired hands (an extra-randy Jeff Harlan and Xanadu‘s Fred McCarren) move. Girlfriend Anne-Marie Martin (TV’s Sledge Hammer) and her pal Rebecca Balding (Silent Scream) come to visit, bringing along a yappy little dog that’s actually a darn good actor, as far as animals go. That they won’t all last until the end is a given, but how and in what order?

Despite its goofy, ooga-booga title — never spoken by any of the characters — the film takes itself at just the right level of seriousness; it’s not the piece of quick-buck schlock I feared it might be. Director James L. Conway (Hangar 18) tells the story earnestly, making it a welcome respite from the era’s slasher craze. Smarter than you’d think and lagging only in the middle, The Boogens recalls the creature features of yore — perhaps not with class, but definitely with ingenuity that belies its low budget. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.