Ghoulies (1984)

I knew I was in trouble when I looked up Ghoulies on a website and the first keyword that came up was 'toilet'.

Ghoulies is a 1984 horror comedy directed by Luca Bercovici and starring Peter Liapis and Lisa Pelikan.

Ordinarily any film that features a pair of demonic midgets would be guaranteed to scary the holy shit out of me, but this film just left me wanting to bang my head against something solid. 

Ghoulies is a pretty poor excuse for any kind of film, much less a horror. I mean, for one thing, the ghoulies are peripheral characters at best. Some blonde sorcerer guy is the actual movie monster of the film. What a colossal let down. I was expecting a cheap version of Gremlins, or some decent gore, or at the very least a nice pair of naked breasts to look at, but this movie had none of that.

This is supposed to be a horror-comedy. I think the first thing you should do if you're going to put the word 'comedy' anywhere near a film, is make it funny. It's about as funny as a case of gastro. Before the ghoulies appeared in the film I found myself examining the DVD case wondering if somehow some other film had ended up in the box by mistake. But no. The movie's just shit.

And to make matters worse, the ghoulies are cute, not slimy and gross. I wanted to trap one and take him home as a pet. 

And at the end of the day, it's just plain boring. I was begging to be scared, or shocked, or even mildly entertained, but as the minutes ticked by I realized that hope was forlorn.

I must admit I did enjoy the freaky clown though. Best acting in the entire film, and I always find clowns freaky. But any movie that makes me start absently humming "I gotta wear shades" can never be counted among my favourites. I'm referring of course to the stoner idiot who never takes his off. People that wear sunglasses indoors should be shot.

The sorcerer boy is Jonathan (Peter Liapis). He and his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan) have just moved into his late father's mansion, which Jonathan has inherited. It seems Daddy was a Satanist who liked to perform magic rituals in the basement, so naturally Jonathan has picked up this little genetic anomaly, and he begins to do it himself. No sooner has he barked a few spells he's conjured some puppets and Daddy's even back from the dead too. Oh, and he also conjures two midgets, as you do.

Anyway, a bunch of Jonathan and Rebecca's friends die in the ensuing chaos before he has a show down with his sorcerer Dad and saves the day. Verdict: watch Gremlins instead.

Note: this is an updated version of a review I posted for Ghoulies on Best-Horror-Movies.com. The original can be seen here: http://www.best-horror-movies.com/review?name=ghoulies-1985-review