Cody advises that you watch all four Ghoulies movies and scream until you like it.
GHOULIES (1985)
Director Luca Bercovici's Ghoulies is a movie I remember seeing a lot on cable in the late '80s, and I was a bit troubled by it at the time. Although it has its share of oddball humor, it's a bit darker than some of the other "tiny terrors" horror movies. That's because the titular creatures aren't just animals, aliens, or even living dolls. The ghoulies are demons that are summoned into our world in a film that's packed with occult rituals... and that sort of stuff really creeped me out when I was a kid.
The film begins with a ritual in which a glowing-eyed Malcolm Graves (Michael Des Barres) is about to make a human sacrifice of his own infant son Jonathan. Some members of his cult, like Jonathan's mother, can't go along with this sort of thing, though. She puts a protective talisman necklace on the baby that keeps Malcolm from being able to touch him, and before you can ask "couldn't someone other than Malcolm just take the necklace off of him?" baby Jonathan is being taken away from the ritual by cultist Wolfgang (Jack Nance - whose character is rarely acknowledged in the rest of the movie even though he is present and even delivers some narration.)
Time passes, Malcolm dies a "horrible death" at some point, and Jonathan ends up inheriting his mansion home, where Wolfgang works as the caretaker and has his own place on the property. Malcolm's grave also happens to be on the property, which will cause some trouble later on. Jonathan, now in his early twenties but played by Peter Liapis, who was around ten years older at the time and looking every bit of it, moves into the mansion with his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan). Right after Jonathan introduces Rebecca to Wolfgang the caretaker, there's a bit of ADR voiceover where Jonathan mentions that Wolfgang is the only family he has ever known, which doesn't make sense since Wolfgang has been taking care of the Graves mansion but Jonathan hasn't been there since he was an infant.
I get a feeling there was some clunky post-production tinkering regarding the Wolfgang character. I'm assuming that when the movie was shot he was probably just a cultist who took Jonathan to safety and then stuck around to be the caretaker, never seeing the kid again until he inherits the house. Everything about him raising Jonathan seems to have been stuck in there after filming. Maybe this is discussed on the special edition Blu-ray, which I don't have a copy of.
In the midst of all this we're introduced to some of Jonathan and Rebecca's friends. These characters are the source of much of the "oddball humor" I mentioned, because these folks are just about as weird as the ghoulies are. There's a guy who puts on a strange voice and refers to himself as Toad Boy (Ralph Seymour), saying he needs some "sweet meat for his tum"; there's the guy who uses the line "they call me Dick, but you can call me Dick" (Keith Joe Dick) as a pick-up line; the breakdancing pothead Mike (Scott Thomson), his pal Eddie (David Dayan)... The guys are nuts, the normal ones are the women, Robin (Charene Cathleen) and Donna (Mariska Hargitay). Against Jonathan's initial wishes, these friends will eventually cross paths with the ghoulies.
As Jonathan digs deeper into the occult on a quest for knowledge and power, his eyes start glowing just like his father's did. He also conjures a couple hellish characters who didn't catch on like the ghoulies did, little person servants called Grizzel and Greedigut, who wear outfits that would fit in at a Ren Fair. I'm not sure why Bercovici and his co-writer Jefery Levy thought Grizzel and Greedigut were necessary additions to the story, as their presence doesn't add much at all except another layer of weirdness. Which actually is about the only justification you need for something in a horror movie like this. These characters were played by 2'2" Peter Risch and 2'7" Tamara De Treaux (who had played E.T. for Steven Spielberg), and sadly both of the actors would pass away at young ages less than six years after the release of Ghoulies.
For most of the film we're just watching Jonathan conduct rituals and hang out with the things he conjures. Chilling, reading a book with a ghoulie sitting beside him. But with about 25 minutes to go he conducts a ritual that gets more intense and ends with him and the ghoulies screaming - and out in the yard, the rotten corpse of Malcolm also bursts from his grave, screaming. It's an awesome moment and a great visual. Quickly regenerating, Malcolm rises from the dead to wreak havoc, and he takes control of the ghoulies to do so.
I have watched Ghoulies many times, and yet between viewings I still manage to forget that the ghoulies themselves aren't just set dressing in the movie, that they actually do get involved with attacking people. I also forget that the movie climaxes with something of a wizard fight. But one thing that has always stuck in my mind is the ending of the movie, when ghoulies pop up in the backseat of a car taking survivors away from the mayhem that occurred at the Graves mansion. The movie freezes on that image before credits start rolling, and it was such an effective "oh crap" moment for me as a kid that it has stayed with me for decades.
Produced by Charles Band, the man who would go on to bring us other tiny terrors horror films like the Puppet Master series, Ghoulies is a weird little movie. The ghoulies really didn't even need to be in it, this could have been a straightforward story of a guy being consumed by the same occult forces that turned his father evil - and then having to face his resurrected father at the end. The ghoulies are just a bonus, but they're the bonus that made this movie popular. If this was just The Graves Curse or something, Ghoulies would have faded into obscurity. Instead it gave us little creatures that could carry a franchise and which are still beloved, regardless of the quality of the movies they're in, all these years later.
I'm not crazy about Ghoulies, and yet I can't help going back to it from time to time.
GHOULIES II (1987)
Like the first Ghoulies, Ghoulies II is a movie I saw a lot on cable when I was a young kid. It feels like my maternal grandmother and I were watching both of those movies on a regular basis when she was babysitting me in the late '80s... and from childhood until now, I have always gotten a lot more entertainment out of watching Ghoulies II than its predecessor. The ghoulies had been sort of a minor presence in the first movie - a minor presence that gave the film's watchability a substantial boost, but minor nonetheless. The sequel is when these creatures are allowed to reach their true potential.
Directed and produced by executive producer Charles Band's father Albert Band, whose career in the entertainment industry stretched back to the 1950s (the 1958 classic I Bury the Living was Band's second film as director/producer), and written by Dennis Paoli, who also worked on Re-Animator, From Beyond, Spellcaster, and Meridian, Ghoulies II begins with a priest being pursued through the night by a group of red-cloaked cultists. We won't find out what that's all about, but this priest is carrying a sack of ghoulies that he tries to ditch by dropping into a barrel of toxic solvent in an auto shop. That doesn't work out for him, and the priest makes his exit from the film - it was a quick cameo by veteran actor Anthony Dawson, who played Professor Dent in the first Sean Connery James Bond film Dr. No and then was the obscured Ernest Stavro Blofeld in From Russia with Love and Thunderball.
As the ghoulies emerge from the toxic solvent and exit the auto shop, we see for the first time that the ghoulies effects have been vastly improved for this film. Not only do fish ghoulie, cat ghoulie, rat ghoulie, and the flying ghoulie look even better than they did before, they and their cool new pal toad ghoulie are brought to life not just through puppetry but also through the occasional excellent stop-motion effects. Thanks to the stop-motion, we get to watch as the ghoulies catch a ride in the back of a semi truck that's hauling the Hardin Family Carnival's funhouse Satan's Den to its next location.
When the carnival is set up, the ghoulies continue to hang out inside the funhouse, which is a very fun set-up. Paying customers walk through the funhouse expecting some jumps, and instead some of them experience real horror at the hands of the ghoulies. There are plenty of deadly things around for the ghoulies to play with; a pendulum torture device, a guillotine, there even happens to be a straight razor just lying around. Teens played by the likes of Sasha Jenson (Halloween 4, Dazed and Confused) and William Butler (Friday the 13th Part VII, Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Night of the Living Dead 1990) get the worst of it... and while the ghoulies are tormenting people, rat ghoulie reveals a hidden talent. This thing can spew a green slime that one character refers to as "gooey sticky shit." This gooey sticky shit glues a teen couple's faces together while they're kissing, which is one of the moments I remember most clearly from my childhood viewings.
Of course, we're not just hanging out with the ghoulies for the whole movie, even though they do get a very satisfactory amount of screen time. We also get to know some of the people who work in the carnival, particularly the guys who run the funhouse, young Larry (Damon Martin) and his alcoholic former magician uncle Ned (Royal Dano, who could always be counted on for an endearing performance.) They're assisted by a little person called Sir Nigel Penneyweight (Phil Fondacaro), who is the heart of the movie in some ways. We're also introduced to Larry's love interest, high wire walker Nicole (Kerry Remsen), who has also caught the attention of the human villain.
That human villain is Philip Hardin (J. Downing). The Hardin Family Carnival isn't a nice family business like the name implies; the carnival is owned by a businessman whose son Philip is head of accounting at his father's company. The carnival is being audited now, and Philip has shown up to make sure any attractions that don't show profit will be closed down. Satan's Den has been losing money for over a year and is now in danger of being replaced by a mud wrestling attraction. Philip is a smarmy douche who gets the perfect comeuppance.
In the movie's last third, the ghoulies are set loose from the funhouse and get to run amok through the whole carnival, sabotaging rides, driving bumper cars, mauling a clown in a dunk tank. Band lets the mischievous little creatures take full advantage of the setting they have been dropped into. This all builds up to a spectacular ending that involves a ritual being performed to summon another demon, this one a giant fish ghoulie - it's even bigger than a human - that likes to eat other ghoulies. Unfortunately, it also mistakes Sir Nigel Penneyweight for a ghoulie. As Sir Nigel says, "He's still hungry. I'm doomed!"
Ghoulies II is a joy to watch, I may like it even more now than I did when I was watching it on TV thirty years ago. It's a fun practical effects monster mash that could have only come out of the '80s.
The W.A.S.P. song "Scream Until You Like It" plays over the end credits, and the ghoulies also appear in the video for that song, interacting with lead singer Blackie Lawless.
Like the first Ghoulies, Ghoulies II is a movie I saw a lot on cable when I was a young kid. It feels like my maternal grandmother and I were watching both of those movies on a regular basis when she was babysitting me in the late '80s... and from childhood until now, I have always gotten a lot more entertainment out of watching Ghoulies II than its predecessor. The ghoulies had been sort of a minor presence in the first movie - a minor presence that gave the film's watchability a substantial boost, but minor nonetheless. The sequel is when these creatures are allowed to reach their true potential.
Directed and produced by executive producer Charles Band's father Albert Band, whose career in the entertainment industry stretched back to the 1950s (the 1958 classic I Bury the Living was Band's second film as director/producer), and written by Dennis Paoli, who also worked on Re-Animator, From Beyond, Spellcaster, and Meridian, Ghoulies II begins with a priest being pursued through the night by a group of red-cloaked cultists. We won't find out what that's all about, but this priest is carrying a sack of ghoulies that he tries to ditch by dropping into a barrel of toxic solvent in an auto shop. That doesn't work out for him, and the priest makes his exit from the film - it was a quick cameo by veteran actor Anthony Dawson, who played Professor Dent in the first Sean Connery James Bond film Dr. No and then was the obscured Ernest Stavro Blofeld in From Russia with Love and Thunderball.
As the ghoulies emerge from the toxic solvent and exit the auto shop, we see for the first time that the ghoulies effects have been vastly improved for this film. Not only do fish ghoulie, cat ghoulie, rat ghoulie, and the flying ghoulie look even better than they did before, they and their cool new pal toad ghoulie are brought to life not just through puppetry but also through the occasional excellent stop-motion effects. Thanks to the stop-motion, we get to watch as the ghoulies catch a ride in the back of a semi truck that's hauling the Hardin Family Carnival's funhouse Satan's Den to its next location.
When the carnival is set up, the ghoulies continue to hang out inside the funhouse, which is a very fun set-up. Paying customers walk through the funhouse expecting some jumps, and instead some of them experience real horror at the hands of the ghoulies. There are plenty of deadly things around for the ghoulies to play with; a pendulum torture device, a guillotine, there even happens to be a straight razor just lying around. Teens played by the likes of Sasha Jenson (Halloween 4, Dazed and Confused) and William Butler (Friday the 13th Part VII, Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Night of the Living Dead 1990) get the worst of it... and while the ghoulies are tormenting people, rat ghoulie reveals a hidden talent. This thing can spew a green slime that one character refers to as "gooey sticky shit." This gooey sticky shit glues a teen couple's faces together while they're kissing, which is one of the moments I remember most clearly from my childhood viewings.
Of course, we're not just hanging out with the ghoulies for the whole movie, even though they do get a very satisfactory amount of screen time. We also get to know some of the people who work in the carnival, particularly the guys who run the funhouse, young Larry (Damon Martin) and his alcoholic former magician uncle Ned (Royal Dano, who could always be counted on for an endearing performance.) They're assisted by a little person called Sir Nigel Penneyweight (Phil Fondacaro), who is the heart of the movie in some ways. We're also introduced to Larry's love interest, high wire walker Nicole (Kerry Remsen), who has also caught the attention of the human villain.
That human villain is Philip Hardin (J. Downing). The Hardin Family Carnival isn't a nice family business like the name implies; the carnival is owned by a businessman whose son Philip is head of accounting at his father's company. The carnival is being audited now, and Philip has shown up to make sure any attractions that don't show profit will be closed down. Satan's Den has been losing money for over a year and is now in danger of being replaced by a mud wrestling attraction. Philip is a smarmy douche who gets the perfect comeuppance.
In the movie's last third, the ghoulies are set loose from the funhouse and get to run amok through the whole carnival, sabotaging rides, driving bumper cars, mauling a clown in a dunk tank. Band lets the mischievous little creatures take full advantage of the setting they have been dropped into. This all builds up to a spectacular ending that involves a ritual being performed to summon another demon, this one a giant fish ghoulie - it's even bigger than a human - that likes to eat other ghoulies. Unfortunately, it also mistakes Sir Nigel Penneyweight for a ghoulie. As Sir Nigel says, "He's still hungry. I'm doomed!"
Ghoulies II is a joy to watch, I may like it even more now than I did when I was watching it on TV thirty years ago. It's a fun practical effects monster mash that could have only come out of the '80s.
The W.A.S.P. song "Scream Until You Like It" plays over the end credits, and the ghoulies also appear in the video for that song, interacting with lead singer Blackie Lawless.
GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE (1990)
Given that Empire Pictures founder Charles Band's own father had directed Ghoulies II and the production company they had put together to make that movie was named after his daughter (Taryn), it must have been a tough thing to do when he had to sell off the Ghoulies franchise as Empire fell into bankruptcy. Charles Band went on to start his company Full Moon soon after losing Empire, and Full Moon is still around thirty years later. If the ghoulies had made it into the Full Moon era, we'd have probably gotten a lot more sequels by now. As it is, there have only been two post-Band Ghoulies movies made, and the franchise has been dormant for twenty-five years.
It was Vestron Pictures that brought the world the third Ghoulies movie, and they did find the perfect director to take the helm of Ghoulies Go to College - special effects artist John Carl Beuchler, who designed the ghoulies and had recently directed Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. Scripted by Brent Olson, the film is, as the title implies, an Animal House knock-off that has the ghoulies wreaking havoc on the Glazier College campus in the middle of the traditional "prank week", which the guys at the Beta and Gamma fraternities take very seriously, always trying to out-prank (or "yank") each other in a competition for a tinfoil crown.
Our hero of sorts is from the Beta house, Evan MacKenzie as Skip Carter. As the ghoulies cause trouble, it's Skip who has to deal with most of the consequences, which threaten his future and his on-and-off relationship with the girl he loves, Erin Riddle (Eva LaRue). Skip and Erin are in an off phase when we're introduced to them, and she's even going out with Skip's sworn enemy, Jeremy Heilman (John Johnston) of the Gamma house.
Skip and Jeremy are not fond of each other, but the true villain of this film is the college dean, Professor Ragnar (legendary character actor Kevin McCarthy). Not only does Ragnar have his own creepy fixation on Erin, he is also so uptight about prank week that he has taken control of the ghoulies and put them in the middle of the Beta / Gamma competition, doing his best to set off a "war to end all frats." McCarthy gets to play way over-the-top and chew the scenery in this movie, taking on scenes that require him to do things like taunt the ghoulies with the line "The ghoulies have no dicks!", torment a tied-up Eva LaRue, and even become a ghoulie himself.
Other characters who get caught up in the ghoulie prank shenanigans include The Bob Newhart Show / Match Game legend Marcia Wallace as Ragnar's assistant Miss Boggs and Stephen Lee of Dolls as Barcus, a security guard who is very proud of his patrol golf cart and wears women's panties. When he goes to a sorority offering to keep everyone's panties safe during an impending panty raid, he has his own comfort in mind.
Aside from the fact that it came out in the '90s, Ghoulies Go to College is an '80s sex comedy through and through, complete with gratuitous nudity (some of that provided by Hope Marie Carlton, who also made a memorable appearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) and a scene of girls having a pillow fight in their underwear.
This new brand of comedy extends to the presentation of the ghoulies themselves, who are even able to speak this time. Bob Bergen, Patrick Pinney, and Richard Kind, voice actors who are still working today, provide their voices. The ghoulies smack each other around like the Three Stooges, drink over two thousand beers in one night, put on clothes... And rat ghoulie has been given a total makeover, the creature looks totally different here than it did in the previous two films. Ghoulies puritans probably take issue with all of this, but these ghoulies are fitting for the movie they're in.
The ghoulies are also summoned in a different way here. Occult rituals are no longer necessary, all someone has to do is read from a comic book called Ghoulish Tales that features translations of medieval text that summons the ghoulies from "the porcelain vessel", the "porcelain place of earthly waste." The toilet. Ghoulish Tales was never officially published, a fire at the publishing house kept multiple copies from reaching stores, but one copy did manage to make its way to Glazier College.
Ghoulies Go to College is very different from Ghoulies and Ghoulies II, but it's a fun movie in its own right. Especially if you like '80s sex comedies and the Three Stooges.
Given that Empire Pictures founder Charles Band's own father had directed Ghoulies II and the production company they had put together to make that movie was named after his daughter (Taryn), it must have been a tough thing to do when he had to sell off the Ghoulies franchise as Empire fell into bankruptcy. Charles Band went on to start his company Full Moon soon after losing Empire, and Full Moon is still around thirty years later. If the ghoulies had made it into the Full Moon era, we'd have probably gotten a lot more sequels by now. As it is, there have only been two post-Band Ghoulies movies made, and the franchise has been dormant for twenty-five years.
It was Vestron Pictures that brought the world the third Ghoulies movie, and they did find the perfect director to take the helm of Ghoulies Go to College - special effects artist John Carl Beuchler, who designed the ghoulies and had recently directed Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. Scripted by Brent Olson, the film is, as the title implies, an Animal House knock-off that has the ghoulies wreaking havoc on the Glazier College campus in the middle of the traditional "prank week", which the guys at the Beta and Gamma fraternities take very seriously, always trying to out-prank (or "yank") each other in a competition for a tinfoil crown.
Our hero of sorts is from the Beta house, Evan MacKenzie as Skip Carter. As the ghoulies cause trouble, it's Skip who has to deal with most of the consequences, which threaten his future and his on-and-off relationship with the girl he loves, Erin Riddle (Eva LaRue). Skip and Erin are in an off phase when we're introduced to them, and she's even going out with Skip's sworn enemy, Jeremy Heilman (John Johnston) of the Gamma house.
Skip and Jeremy are not fond of each other, but the true villain of this film is the college dean, Professor Ragnar (legendary character actor Kevin McCarthy). Not only does Ragnar have his own creepy fixation on Erin, he is also so uptight about prank week that he has taken control of the ghoulies and put them in the middle of the Beta / Gamma competition, doing his best to set off a "war to end all frats." McCarthy gets to play way over-the-top and chew the scenery in this movie, taking on scenes that require him to do things like taunt the ghoulies with the line "The ghoulies have no dicks!", torment a tied-up Eva LaRue, and even become a ghoulie himself.
Other characters who get caught up in the ghoulie prank shenanigans include The Bob Newhart Show / Match Game legend Marcia Wallace as Ragnar's assistant Miss Boggs and Stephen Lee of Dolls as Barcus, a security guard who is very proud of his patrol golf cart and wears women's panties. When he goes to a sorority offering to keep everyone's panties safe during an impending panty raid, he has his own comfort in mind.
Aside from the fact that it came out in the '90s, Ghoulies Go to College is an '80s sex comedy through and through, complete with gratuitous nudity (some of that provided by Hope Marie Carlton, who also made a memorable appearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) and a scene of girls having a pillow fight in their underwear.
This new brand of comedy extends to the presentation of the ghoulies themselves, who are even able to speak this time. Bob Bergen, Patrick Pinney, and Richard Kind, voice actors who are still working today, provide their voices. The ghoulies smack each other around like the Three Stooges, drink over two thousand beers in one night, put on clothes... And rat ghoulie has been given a total makeover, the creature looks totally different here than it did in the previous two films. Ghoulies puritans probably take issue with all of this, but these ghoulies are fitting for the movie they're in.
The ghoulies are also summoned in a different way here. Occult rituals are no longer necessary, all someone has to do is read from a comic book called Ghoulish Tales that features translations of medieval text that summons the ghoulies from "the porcelain vessel", the "porcelain place of earthly waste." The toilet. Ghoulish Tales was never officially published, a fire at the publishing house kept multiple copies from reaching stores, but one copy did manage to make its way to Glazier College.
Ghoulies Go to College is very different from Ghoulies and Ghoulies II, but it's a fun movie in its own right. Especially if you like '80s sex comedies and the Three Stooges.
GHOULIES IV (1994)
Ghoulies IV is the only sequel in the franchise that follows up on the story of the first film, and yet it's also the only film in the franchise that doesn't have proper ghoulies in it. This one came from Cinetel Films, a company that decided to greenlight a Ghoulies sequel even though they apparently couldn't afford to have the ghoulies puppets. How much can it cost to have some puppets built and moved around on set? And why even attempt to make a Ghoulies movie if you can't afford the ghoulies? Well, obviously the answer is to get money from people duped into watching the movie just because of the title.
Fans of the first movie might also be interested in catching up with Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis returns to the role), who since his days of ditching college in favor of the occult has become an LAPD cop of the usual B-movie variety. You know, the sloppy schlub type who doesn't play by the rules and is introduced disrupting an armed robbery by blowing away the shotgun-toting perpetrator.
Jonathan has become quite a ladies man since we last saw him, although it's not clear why any woman would be into him. He used to be in a relationship with a former partner who is now his Captain, Kate Farr (Barbara Alyn Woods), he's currently with a woman named Jeanine (Raquel Krelle), and the primary villain of the film is his ex, Alexandra, who's played by Stacie Randall of Puppet Master 4, Trancers 4 and 5, Demolition High, and From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money. Jonathan dated Alexandra back in the days before he fully got out of the occult, and she ended up in a mental institution. But now she's out.
These days Alexandra is running around Los Angeles in a revealing leather outfit, killing people in service of a cloak-wearing fellow called Faust (Liapis pulling double duty) who's from the same dimension the ghoulies inhabit. This guy is seeking a certain jewel, and the movie opens with Alexandra busting into a warehouse and wiping out security guards with a silencer-equipped gun and ninja throwing stars so she can obtain the jewel. She messes that up, so she has to get another jewel - and this replacement jewel happens to hang on a necklace worn by Jonathan.
While Alexandra and her supernatural pal pursue Jonathan and his jewel, we see that she has accidentally set two "ghoulies" loose in the city. These things are raggedly dressed demons played by 3'6" actors Tony Cox and Arturo Gil, and while they're credited as Ghoulie Dark and Ghoulie Lite, I never took these characters as ghoulies. Because they're not. I always figured they were something else, like Grizzel and Greedigut from the first movie, but ugly and horned. I've also never referred to them as Dark and Lite. There's a scene where they jokingly introduce themselves as Sears and Roebuck, so that's who they are to me. These characters have little to nothing to do with the plot, they just run around getting up to comedic shenanigans and talking non-stop. The only time we see actual ghoulies is in stock footage flashbacks to the first movie.
Directed by B-movie legend Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall, The Return of Swamp Thing, Sorority House Massacre II, Hard to Die, Raptor) from a script by Mark Sevi, who was the go-to guy for low budget sequels for a while (Dead On: Relentless II, Class of 1999 II: The Substitute, Fast Getaway II, Relentless IV: Ashes to Ashes), Ghoulies IV was a disappointment to me even when I first watched it when I was just 10 years old. This was not what I expected to see from a Ghoulies movie. The only saving grace was the presence of Stacie Randall, and the occasional stray amusing line from those two little guys who weren't ghoulies. It's not a very good or interesting movie... and really shouldn't have been made without new scenes featuring fish ghoulie, rat ghoulie, and cat ghoulie.
Ghoulies IV dropped the ball and killed the franchise, but I would love it if whoever holds the rights at this point would put a Ghoulies 5 into production... at least, as long as that Ghoulies 5 would have actual ghoulies in it. A new sequel that's something along the lines of Ghoulies II would be great to see. I'd even take another Ghoulies or Ghoulies Go to College.
Ghoulies IV: Part 2, which Sears and Roebuck promise at the end of Ghoulies IV, I would be less enthusiastic about.
Ghoulies IV is the only sequel in the franchise that follows up on the story of the first film, and yet it's also the only film in the franchise that doesn't have proper ghoulies in it. This one came from Cinetel Films, a company that decided to greenlight a Ghoulies sequel even though they apparently couldn't afford to have the ghoulies puppets. How much can it cost to have some puppets built and moved around on set? And why even attempt to make a Ghoulies movie if you can't afford the ghoulies? Well, obviously the answer is to get money from people duped into watching the movie just because of the title.
Fans of the first movie might also be interested in catching up with Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis returns to the role), who since his days of ditching college in favor of the occult has become an LAPD cop of the usual B-movie variety. You know, the sloppy schlub type who doesn't play by the rules and is introduced disrupting an armed robbery by blowing away the shotgun-toting perpetrator.
Jonathan has become quite a ladies man since we last saw him, although it's not clear why any woman would be into him. He used to be in a relationship with a former partner who is now his Captain, Kate Farr (Barbara Alyn Woods), he's currently with a woman named Jeanine (Raquel Krelle), and the primary villain of the film is his ex, Alexandra, who's played by Stacie Randall of Puppet Master 4, Trancers 4 and 5, Demolition High, and From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money. Jonathan dated Alexandra back in the days before he fully got out of the occult, and she ended up in a mental institution. But now she's out.
These days Alexandra is running around Los Angeles in a revealing leather outfit, killing people in service of a cloak-wearing fellow called Faust (Liapis pulling double duty) who's from the same dimension the ghoulies inhabit. This guy is seeking a certain jewel, and the movie opens with Alexandra busting into a warehouse and wiping out security guards with a silencer-equipped gun and ninja throwing stars so she can obtain the jewel. She messes that up, so she has to get another jewel - and this replacement jewel happens to hang on a necklace worn by Jonathan.
While Alexandra and her supernatural pal pursue Jonathan and his jewel, we see that she has accidentally set two "ghoulies" loose in the city. These things are raggedly dressed demons played by 3'6" actors Tony Cox and Arturo Gil, and while they're credited as Ghoulie Dark and Ghoulie Lite, I never took these characters as ghoulies. Because they're not. I always figured they were something else, like Grizzel and Greedigut from the first movie, but ugly and horned. I've also never referred to them as Dark and Lite. There's a scene where they jokingly introduce themselves as Sears and Roebuck, so that's who they are to me. These characters have little to nothing to do with the plot, they just run around getting up to comedic shenanigans and talking non-stop. The only time we see actual ghoulies is in stock footage flashbacks to the first movie.
Directed by B-movie legend Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall, The Return of Swamp Thing, Sorority House Massacre II, Hard to Die, Raptor) from a script by Mark Sevi, who was the go-to guy for low budget sequels for a while (Dead On: Relentless II, Class of 1999 II: The Substitute, Fast Getaway II, Relentless IV: Ashes to Ashes), Ghoulies IV was a disappointment to me even when I first watched it when I was just 10 years old. This was not what I expected to see from a Ghoulies movie. The only saving grace was the presence of Stacie Randall, and the occasional stray amusing line from those two little guys who weren't ghoulies. It's not a very good or interesting movie... and really shouldn't have been made without new scenes featuring fish ghoulie, rat ghoulie, and cat ghoulie.
Ghoulies IV dropped the ball and killed the franchise, but I would love it if whoever holds the rights at this point would put a Ghoulies 5 into production... at least, as long as that Ghoulies 5 would have actual ghoulies in it. A new sequel that's something along the lines of Ghoulies II would be great to see. I'd even take another Ghoulies or Ghoulies Go to College.
Ghoulies IV: Part 2, which Sears and Roebuck promise at the end of Ghoulies IV, I would be less enthusiastic about.
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