“What if the Gremlins worshiped Satan?” is a movie premise that would have most producers running for the hills – most producers that is, except for shlock-meister Charles Band who would jump at the chance to sell his own mother if it meant he could get the stupidest shit up on screen. Of course, in the race to find the next diminutive movie monster after Joe Dante’s giggling, green, gob-shites dismantled Kingston Falls at Christmas, Band wasn’t going to let a little thing such as plot coherence slow his role and sure enough, his toilet dwelling beasties managed to beat the Critters to the punch by a whole year.
However, when we actually looked past Ghoulies’ fan favourite poster that featured the genuinely adorable pun of “They’ll get you in the end.” next to an image of a little green monster popping out of a lavatory, we found that Band had pulled something of a act of cinematic trickery worthy of the devil himself…
Years ago, Satanic cult leader Malcolm Graves attempts to blow his shot at father of the year when he orders his own infant son, Jonathan, sacrificed on an alter celebrating his dark lord. However, before he can strike the killing blow against the child, his mother interferes and places a protective amulet on him which prevents his father from performing the terrible deed and as a result, Jonathan’s mother is sacrificed in his stead while satanic lackey, Wolfgang, is order to flee with the child into the night.
Years pass and after Malcolm has died some inevitable, awful death, a grown, clueless Jonathan has discovered that he’s inherited the very house where his father once tried to sacrifice him. Of course, what with this being the 80s, the first thing both he and his girlfriend Rebecca do is organise a sizable housewarming party which attracts all the stoners, womanisers and geeks that their friend list contains – but when the main night ends and the majority of the well wishers have gone home, Jonathan suggests rather a strange alternative to such party games as strip poker, hide and seek and charades: a ritual.
At first, the drawing of protective circles and chanting of arcane verses seems to yield no results, but unbeknownst to everyone present, Jonathan has summoned a little creature from beyond called a “Ghoulie” and this only proves to be the beginning. Becoming increasingly obsessed about the occult, Jonathan not only drops out of school to continue studying the countless books on the subject his house contains, but he soon conjures up a cadre of little hell-beasties to do his bidding.
However, as him personal life suffers and Rebecca leaves him, a question has to be asked: is Jonathan really so taken with the occult, or is there an evil force in the house that’s influencing him to invite his close friends back for a night they’ll never forget?
So before we get started, I suppose it would be right to declare where exactly the Ghoulies sit on the little monster movie scale and unsurprisingly they don’t take the top spot. Of course, the Gremlins reign supreme as those little fuckers are entertaining chaos incarnate and nestled comfortably in second are the Critters due to the 50s throwback feel and their carnivorous attitudes. However, while the Ghoulies certainly have their faults, they still are a noticable step up from the Z-list entries like Hobgoblins or the Munchies, primarily because when people think of the Ghoulies, chances are they’re thinking of the fairground set sequel and not the original. Why aren’t they thinking of the original? Because despite being plastered all over the poster and ad campaign, the grotty little bastards don’t actually have much to do with the plot of the first film that mostly takes the form of a teen comedy mixed with a large dose of satanic panic and leaves the titular creatures growling and slobbering in the peripheral of the story.
The main thrust of the film involves your typical tale of someone inheriting a big creepy house and suddenly finding that their mystery past has a whole bunch of freaky shit attached to it and instead of various scenes off rubbery demons goofing off, we deal mostly with Peter Liapis’ Jonathan gradually getting taken in by the dark arts as the influence of his dead father leads him down a satanic path. To be fair, anyone rightfully expecting 80 minutes of pratfalling by stiff-limbed puppets is going to feel somewhat ripped off that the Ghoulies themselves are only supporting players and that a pair of little people with rat teeth and pointy ears take point in their master’s demands, but I have to say that despite its deliberately cheesy feel, there’s always been something oddly likable about this goofy flick.
The Ghoulies themselves (created by John Carl Buechler) may have all the articulation of a brick, but the growling little sods all seem to have their own personalities be it shitter dwelling lizard-baby, cat-faced eyeball roller, or one that strangely looks like a cross between W.C. Fields and a mutant possum. Also, while a lot of the jokes are of the roll-the-eyes-and-groan variety, there’s a real sense of an EC Comic book vibe going on the way the bright colours and casual satanism is just thrown across the screen.
The cast seem nicely game too as they deliver a bunch of overacted performances that actually fit quite well with the usual type of acting seen in Charlie Band productions and eagle-eyed viewers may either recognise the odd cast member from such things as Carrie ripoff Jennifer (Lisa Pelikan), Law And Order (Mariska Hargitay) and even Police Academy (Scott Thompson). Of course, we can’t ignore that David Lynch regular Jack Nance is also present, doing that exact brand of bug-eyed mugging that made him such a cult fixture – bit none of this can halt the fact that despite a lot of weird stuff in the last act, Ghoulies just does deliver on its monster promise the way that it should. Sure, we have the sight of the zombiefied striding around the place with constantly splayed fingers like he’s just walked on stage with Ozzy Osborne; we have a bizarre sequences that sees a Joker-faced clown rip open to reveal a slimy green monster; and we have the sight of a man getting garrotted by a super long tongue – but as we’ve turned up primarily to watch squat, tiny monsters do their thing, the fact that they’re not the main antagonists just feels like we’ve been somehow cheated.
More fun than some would have you believe, Ghoulies nevertheless sets itself up to fail by not even accurately ripping off the movie it was trying to beat to the screen.
Adequately doles out the goofy cheese that usually comes with a Charles Band monster movie, it’s impossible not to notice many similarities with the producer’s other tiny terror epic, Puppet Master (a secluded house, a lust to obtain supernatural power, endless cutaways to lurking mini monsters). But where that movie knew well enough to lean more into their title stars, fans of the Ghoulies gang would have to wait until the sequel until the lil’ fuckers actually took centre stage – an approach that appropriately bites it in the ass.
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