Boogeyman is a 2005 supernatural horror film directed by Stephen Kay and starring Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel, Skye McCole Bartusiak, Tory Mussett, Charles Mesure, and Lucy Lawless. Written by Eric Kripke, Juliet Snowden, and Stiles White, from a story by Kripke, the film is a new take on the classic "boogeyman", or monster in the closet, who is the eponymous antagonist of the film. The plot concerns a young man returns to the house he grew up in to confront the childhood terror that has affected his life. It’s an international co-production between the United States, New Zealand and Germany.

The film was panned by critics, often citing a generic and unoriginal plot as the main criticism. Despite receiving negative reviews from critics, it was a financial success and was followed by two direct-to-video sequels, Boogeyman 2 (2007) and Boogeyman 3 (2008).

During his childhood, Tim Jensen witnesses his father being taken by the Boogeyman, an evil creature which lives in all closets worldwide. Since then, he has taken precautions to ensure that the Boogeyman cannot get to him, such as sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and removing all closets from his home, and keeping all his clothes in a dresser drawer.

After a Thanksgiving trip with his girlfriend Jessica to her parents' house, Tim has a premonition in which his mother tells him to return to the family home. Soon after, he receives a call from his uncle informing him that his mother has died. Upon returning to the psychiatric ward, where he grew up after his father died, he discovers that one of the patients, a young girl, is being terrorized by something hiding in the ceiling of her room.

Upon a suggestion by his psychiatrist that returning to his family home to spend the night in that house would be a good idea, Tim returns to his old Victorian style house in the open country, where he relives memories of his mother telling his father that the Boogeyman does not exist and therefore cannot possibly harm Tim. Tim is briefly attacked by the Boogeyman when he enters the downstairs closet.

Tim meets a young girl in his woodshed, named Franny, who wants to know if it's true that the Boogeyman murdered Tim's father. Searching the woodshed he discovers a file of Missing Person lists and documents left by Franny, and upon flicking through them, he discovers a disturbing collection of missing children who were all taken by the Boogeyman.

Tim panics and attempts to leave, but Jessica abruptly shows up and takes Tim out of the house for a night to a quiet motel, where she is murdered by the Boogeyman, dragging her into the bath.

Tim returns from getting ice and preparing drinks and enters the bathroom, where he finds that Jessica is missing. He realizes what has occurred, and stumbles blindly into a closet, and then walks out into his family home, just as Kate, his childhood friend, has returned to his home and, upon hearing noises from the closets, was about to open the door herself. Tim drags Kate back to the hotel, where they find the empty bath; this time with blood on the side. Kate begins thinking that Tim might've harmed Jessica, but Tim angrily denies it. Frustrated at Tim's refusal to tell her what is really wrong with him, Kate drives them back to her house where Tim spots something in the window. Kate claims that the person Tim saw was in fact her father. She then calls Tim's Uncle Mike to have him check on Tim. But he is captured and taken away by the Boogeyman.