Review of Ghoulies (1985) by Paul F — 14 Jan 2005

If you grew up in the '80s, you probably saw a Charles Band film, even if you didn't know it. Band was probably responsible for the most horror, fantasy and science fiction films of the era with both his Empire Pictures and Full Moon studios, even if the results were usually so unremarkable that they've since been wiped from your memory.

Band's films, however, were perfect for the 9-year-old audience, as most of them seemed to just throw together a bunch of things a 9-year-old would think are cool--ninjas, cyborgs, little creatures, black magic, kids, midgets, goofy accents, swordplay--and toss them together randomly into a movie. Eve most of the films that contained sex simply contained boobs and the idea of what sex would be like--it's the harmless, juvenile sex of a frat party movie rather than anything explicit.

It was the advertising that did it, though. I was convinced that [i]Eliminators [/i]would be a great movie because had a guy that looked like a tank and lots of gunfights. It wasn't, but it wasn't until after I'd seen it on TV that I realized that. I still own it, not out of nostalgia for the movie itself but because I was fascinated by it as a kid.

[i]Ghoulies[/i] worked much the same way. The ads, which promised a tiny little Gremin-like creature popping out of a toilet with the slogan "They'll get you... in the end" were simultaneously clever and stupid enough to appeal to enough discerning audience members to make a decent profit. "Hey, this should be dumb fun," they probably said to themselves, "let's go!".

They had not yet learned that Charles Band movies are rarely dumb fun. But they are always dumb.

The film starts out well enough, with Michael Des Barres and Jack Nance facing off during a black magic ceremony, Des Barres with green eyes, horns and a costume stolen from Manos, Hands of Fate. Des Barres wants to use his own son for some sort of ritual (there are lots of rituals in the film, and we're never told what, exactly, they're for) and Nance steals him away. Des Barres doesn't seem particularly pissed and just goes on with his ritual with a new subject.

Cut to several years in the future, where the son Jonathan (Peter Liapis) inherits the house where the ritual was performed. He has a big party and invites all his asshole friends that you can't tell apart, and tries to perform a ritual because he found a book, but they all lose interest. It is, however, good enough to have badly-engineered puppets to start showing up.

Jonathan gets more and more into black magic, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, who freaks out when he catches him mid-ritual one day. Not because he's trying to summon demons or whatever, but because he's "been so distant lately." Yes, they've managed to turn a movie about black magic into a domestic drama. Good lord.

Jonathan finally manages to complete his goal of, er, summoning a couple of midgets with silver skull plates, who are glad to do his bidding. They don't do much. His girlfriend finally leaves him (not because of the rituals or because he speaks in tongues during sex, but because his eyes are green!) but he gets her and his friends back for one big black magic ceremony, where these jerks finally start getting killed off by the ghoulies of the title, though they're never named (or explained) in a movie.

Honestly, even my 9-year-old self would have been pissed at what a rip-off this is. The ghoulies barely show up, and when they do, they don't do much, because they don't seem to have much in the way of movement. The plot doesn't make any sense, it's overnarrated (by Nance) and it's got a rip-off ending. And nobody gets killed on the toilet. Worth interest only to see what[i] E.T.[/i] Tamara de Troix looks like under the costume, but that's about it.

(Mariska Hargitay plays one of the victims, which matters if you watch "Law and Order: SVU," but I don't, so I don't care.).

Strangely, Band Studio house midget Phil Fondacaro isn't in [i]Ghoulies[/i], a situation remedied in [i]Ghoulies II[/i], which has the rare distinction of being a sequel better than the original. Actually, it'd be more impressive in the case to be worse than the original, but [i]Ghoulies II[/i] is almost good enough to be called "watchable." Almost.

At least this time the ghoulies work into the plot. The action takes place at a carnival (9-Year-Old Self: "You know what would be cool? If the Ghoulies went to a carnival!") that's being bought out by an evil guy who wants to close the haunted house because it doesn't make enough money. Young Guy and Love Interest, along with Midget Actor (look, I'm not going to bother looking these things up) try to save the place.

Because of... um... magic, I guess, the ghoulies make their way into said hunted house, where they harass some teens and creep them out enough to get the attention of everyone at the carnival, and attendence increases. You see, they think they're animatronic rats or something.

Okay, so the plot doesn't make any more sense than the first film, but the acting is mildly better, the pacing is pepped up and, well, there are ghoulies that do stuff. Not much, and you can't tell them apart, but they do stuff. Some of it is even mildly clever.

It helps that [i]Ghoulies II[/i] is directed by old pro Albert Band, who at least makes the film look okay, rather than new hack Luca Bercovici, who doesn't seem to have bothered with getting any sense of humor at all for what is a completely goofy film. (Oh, they're jokes, but like in most Band movies, they're jokes made by the characters who then laugh at them. It's like adding a laugh track to "Yes, Dear"--just because it's there doesn't make the jokes funny.).

I managed to pick up MGM's double-feature disc for $1.99, and it's probably worth about that, at least for seeing future [i]Dazed and Confused[/i] star Sasha Jenson get stuck in a permanent lip-lock with his girlfriend thanks to the ghoulies tossing green goo at him. They're both pretty far from good, but at least [i]Ghoulies II[/i] can claim to be marginally entertaining for the 9-year-old within.