When it comes to generating near endless amounts of anarchic chaos, there’s not many genres that can match either the college frat comedy or a mini monster extravaganza. Be it the iconic goofing of John Landis’ National Lampoon’s Animal House to the laser guided lunacy of Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2, no institution was sacred from their epic buffoonery. However, only one movie to my recollection has ever thought to merge the two to wring out maximum mania out of the sight of a bunch of rubbery reprobates wreaking havoc on a place of learning. However, the fact that it was the Ghoulies that graduated first rather than the Gremlins or even the Critters, may have been more of a hinderence than than a benefit.
Possibly the more erratic of the mini monster movie, the Ghoulies have seen the tone of their entries veer wildly from Satan worshiping thriller to carnival set creature feature. But with yet another leap into full blown goofiness, will the Ghoulies trip into higher learning score a big, fat F?
It’s prank week in Granger College and the years old conflict between the Beta Zeta Theta fraternity and the Gammas has reached fever pitch when it comes to pulling the best “yanks”. The Betas, led by prospective prince of pranks Skip Carter, hope to win back the pranking crown off Jeremy Heilman and the douchebags of Gamma house, but as yanking is taking up all of his time and energy, it’s not only starting to harm his studying, but it’s effecting his relationship with Erin who just wants him to grow up. Also sick of prank week is the tyranical Dean of Students, Professor Quentin Ragnar, whose patience has all but run out with all the lame trickery that’s occurring all around him – but after coming into contact with a dusty comic book that allows him to summon three misshapen demons from the depths of an ornate toilet bowl on campus, he finds that he can finally fight fire with fire and end prank week once and for all.
Of course, the trio of “Ghoulies” all prove to be just as obsessed with beer, boobs and belching just as much as your average human collage student, but after throwing his weight around a bit, the Fish, Cat and Rat Ghoulies manage to pit the to fraternities against one another while taking some time off here and there to torment campus security and commit the odd, cartoonish murder. But they aren’t strangling people with their own tongues or pancaking their faces with frying pans, soon the Ghoulies have the Gammas and the Betas chasing their tails much to Ragnar’s glee.
Can Skip manage to salvage his education, heal his rift with Erin and somehow manage to mature and win prank week all at the same time? As long as theirs copious amounts of panty raids on the docket, there’s a good chance the Ghoulies will be distracted long enough for him to win out.
If you were asked to imagine what a movie called Ghoulies Go To College could possibly be like, it’s both a blessing and a curse to the film in question that chances are, no matter what you thought of, you’d be exactly right. While the previous two entries in the franchise managed a modicum of gravitas while it’s titular creatures launched themselves out of Hell and into the toilet bowl of their own series, the third part discards all attempts and horror completely and instead casts the reduced number of Ghoulies as some sort of monstrous version of the Three Stooges complete with face-slaps, eye-pokes and noggin-knocks aplenty. In fact, in this installment, the trio of prat falling cryptids even speak as they deliver sloppy one-liners that’s come straight from the “why I oughta” school of gag writing.
To be fair, while I was surprised at how well the second film had aged, that doesn’t mean I some sort of dedicated Ghoulies purist, so the shift to turning the Fish, Rat and Cat monsters into Larry, Curly & Mo isn’t actually that bad of a concept and it’s one that special effects wizard turned director John Carl Buechler seems eager to embrace. However, dropping a trifecta of 2 foot beasties into the already crazy genre of the college comedy means that the director creates a tone so wacky that you frequently wonder who the hell this movie is supposed to be aimed for. While the humour is predictably childish with all the comedy sound effects and silly deaths aimed at a pre-teen audience, the movie contains all the rampant nudity of a soft core skin flick that includes an epic panty raid sequence that sees a bevy of busty sorority babes attack the raiders with pillows while inexplicably topless. The movie also contains some of the most unsubtle dialogue found on God’s green earth, with such dialogue like “We cant find the pizza we ordered, do you have a large sausage?”, “No complaints yet.” hardly squaring up to the best of Oscar Wilde when it comes to wit. However, while the whole film is shot in a frenetic state of horny energy, my argument to you is what else what a film involving Ghoulies invading prank week supposed to play like?
It may be idiotic beyond belief, but you can’t say that Buechler didn’t understand the assignment and he even scores some points by having the crusty old dean who hates fun role filled by none other than Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’ Kevin McCarthy who somehow missed out on Joe Dante hiring him for a Gremlins flick (archive footage of Body Snatchers doesn’t count) and has to make do with this instead. Amusingly, the old pro throws himself into it like a trooper, bellowing commands at a bunch of floppy, rubber hand puppets and going full Principle Rooney on his half-wit students. In fact, he goes full monster by the end as his villainous teacher merges with his idiot underlings to a raging beast with a giant face growing out of his chest like his mother had been fucked by a Boglin and you have to admire the dedication.
However, while the vast majority of the rest of the cast faded into obscurity, Ghoulies Go To College contains a surprising amount of familiar faces and voices. The late Marcia Wallace (Edna Krabapple from the Simpsons) is present having her tongue stretched like an elastic band, Matthew Lillard and Jason Scott Lee are milling around in the background and arguably the most strange appearance is that Richard Kind is the voice of the Cat Ghoulie, which is so strange to me it almost makes the rest of the movie make some sort of perverse sense.
While certainly stupid, juvenile and thoroughly idiotic, these adjectives don’t necessarily mean that you’re not going to get down with the Ghoulies and if you’re a connoisseur for jokey trash cinema and bone-headed college movies, there’s a shot that this movie will pass with honors. However, for the rest of you, Ghoulies Go To College will no doubt flunk abysmally hard.
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