GHOULIES (1985)/GHOULIES 2 (1987)
Directors: Luca Bercovici, Albert Band
MGM

If you've ever wondered what the worst horror films of the 80s were, you might need to look no further than this double-feature disc from MGM. 1984 saw the release of GREMLINS and 1985 began the rip-offs with GHOULIES, executive produced by Charles Band, which led to two equally inept sequels (one of which, GHOULIES II, is paired with the original on this disc).

College student Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis) and his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan) move into a dilapidated mansion which Jonathan has inherited from an estranged relative. After throwing a wild 80s party with breakdancing, big hair, and pastel sweaters, Jonathan decides to drop out of school and renovate the house. In doing so, he becomes possessed by the evil of the Satanic cult that once inhabited the mansion and resurrects not only the corpse of his dead father, but two awkwardly-dressed dwarves to do his bidding and a gaggle of hand puppets that erupt from toilets and God knows where else to wreak havoc on anyone they come in contact with.

GHOULIES is a mix of mini-monsters and Satanic hocus pocus, none of it convincing or in the least bit scary. Those expecting at least some tongue-in-cheek humor or unintentionally cheesy moments will be left empty-handed. Well, I take that back, there is ONE scene that comes completely out of nowhere: a sexy blonde Satan chick (played by Bobbie Bresee, who promptly disappears from the film) seduces a stupid musclehead and then strangles him with her massive tongue that shoots out of her mouth! It's a moment straight out of an Indonesian horror film, and is the bright spot of the film. Ironic that it doesn't even feature the title creatures, huh? There is a surprising homoerotic relationship between the two stoned biker guys, and the cast may provide some interest, with Lisa Pelikan (the star of JENNIFER, the CARRIE rip-off about a girl who controls snakes with her mind) as the leading lady, Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay's daughter and future "Law & Order" star Mariska Hargitay in a big 80s sweater and even bigger 80s hair, and Scott Thomson from the POLICE ACADEMY films as the stoner friend. You would think that a movie with a character named "Toad Boy" (complete with high-pitched voice), a killer tongue, and an impressive screaming-corpse-shooting-out-of-a-grave sequence would be an 80s trash classic, even with such nuggets of dialogue as "They call me Dick. But you can call me....DICK!," but by the time the end credits roll over a painfully obvious "surprise" ending, you'll wish you had spent your time watching something better. According to the MPAA, 12 minutes were cut out of the movie to achieve its PG-13 rating. One wonders what was cut out? Sex scenes amount to nothing and some scenes which COULD have been violent are boring. If any of that footage has survived, it isn't included here, and with MGM's restoration track record, it can be assumed that the deleted sequences were tossed in the garbage by Band.

GHOULIES II is slightly better. Think GHOULIES meets Tobe Hooper's THE FUNHOUSE. A traveling carnival's denizens are threatened with termination by their corporate owner if their exhibits don't rake in enough dough. For some odd reason, those whacky ghoulies have been resurrected again and have snuck into the Haunted House (amusingly called "Satan's Den"), which results in improving ticket sales. When they start killing people, the carneys band together to put a stop to the madness! And if you guessed that it involves invoking a giant Ghoulie demon to eat all the others, you'd have guessed right!

Surprisingly, the sequel improves on the original, with more interesting hand puppets (one ghoulie is a swooping bird demon, another is a slithering turd-like creation) and there is actually some surprising gore. None of the characters are at all memorable, except perhaps the Shakespeare-spouting midget (played by Phil Fondacaro, one of the human stars of TROLL and familiar from OVER THE RAINBOW and WILLOW), but the change of locale and mildly interesting plotline keeps this flick from being TOO unwatchable. It's good fun, and that's something that can't be said for its predecessor.

Both widescreen anamorphic transfers look perfectly acceptable, with good color and deep blacks. The video history of these films has been pretty good, so the films have never looked awful. The original GHOULIES features a mono mix, the sequel a stereo mix. Both are fine. Thankfully, MGM realized the tiny audience for this disc (if there is one), so only included the theatrical trailers for each film. I still wouldn't see these movies based on the trailers if my life depended on it.

You can do a lot better than the GHOULIES movies, in fact the same day will see the release of REALLY good 80s trash, the TROLL movies on a double-feature disc! I would heartily recommend that double feature of sublime stupidity over this embarrassing time-waster. (Casey Scott)

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