Mary Dauterman’s ‘BOOGER’ (2023) – Movie Review

Grief is something that affects everyone in their own unique way. When I lost my mother, for me it was a complete shutdown: giving up on everything for a very long time. For Anna, the character we follow in Booger, it involves a fair amount of shutting down, closing herself off to the world around her, and a newfound taste for cat food and rats.

Synopsis

After the death of her best friend Izzy, Anna focuses all her attention on Booger, the stray cat which she and Izzy took in. When Booger bites her, she begins to undergo a strange transformation.

Booger was written and directed by Mary Dauterman (Bette). The film stars Grace Glowicki (The Heirloom), Garrick Bernard (Single Drunk Female),  Heather Mattarazo (Scream 3), Marcia DeBonis (13 Going On 30), Sofia Dobrushin (Mean Girls), Jordan Carlos (Cop Out), Richard Perez, David Rysdahl (No Exit), Erika Page (Rideshare), Jenny Donheiser (Bette), and Meagan Kensil (Bette).

In Booger, Anna is kinda a hard character to root for. While it’s understandable that she’s going through a very hard time with the loss of her best friend and roommate Izzy, she has withdrawn so much that she’s basically shut down. She refuses all attempts at help. Her boyfriend Max, who was also friends with Izzy, tries to be there for her and is met with hostility when he tries to share how he feels about the loss. Anna acts like she has the monopoly on grief and no one but her is allowed to miss Izzy because she was her best friend.

Despite this, Grace Glowicki gives a phenomenal performance as Anna. You truly feel that she is grieving and has lost everything that meant anything to her and has given up. Garrick Bernard’s Max is a source of light and humor in an otherwise dark film. You can tell that Max genuinely loves and cares about Anna and is at a loss at how to help. He tries to remind her off the good times and make her feel better, to no avail. Anna and Max’s relationship is the heart and soul of Booger, and it’s a heart that’s on the verge of dying.

I really liked the contrast between Anna and Marcia DeBonis’ Joyce, Izzy’s mom. Despite Joyce having lost her daughter, she makes sure to be there for Anna and show her that despite having lost her daughter, she still wants to be in Anna’s life. Though she’s heartbroken by her own loss, she finds it in her heart to be there for another person, telling Anna that she can’t just bottle up her feelings and rot away. This scene honestly brought me to tears. It would be a disservice to Heather Mattarazo to not mention her performance as an abrasive pet store clerk. She doesn’t have many scenes but she brings a wonderful awkwardness to the moments she appears and got the biggest laugh from me.

Final Thoughts 

Booger is a film that is a pretty hard watch at times, mainly to subject matter and some of the body horror elements, but for someone who has been through a similar situation it could prove to be cathartic. It definitely was for me and I had to watch the film twice to process my feelings and decide how I truly felt about the film.

If you up for a film full of awkward and sometimes gross moments that gets a little heavy sometimes then I highly recommend Booger.