A Major Disappointment

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is an mid-1980s horror comedy indeed, except it was lacking both ingredients actually. It is, however, a very typical Charles Band movie, for good and worse. Was "Ghoulies" a memorable movie? No, not by a long shot. It was just too silly and empty to really be entertaining."Ghoulies" is about a young man who inherits an ancestral home. A house where black magic was used to conjure forth demonic creatures. Lured in by the dark magic, the young man unleash the demonic beings once again.The characters were lacking personalities and depth, but fitted right into the rest of the movie though. The acting performances were nothing impressive either.As for the creatures, well they were probably impressive back in 1984, but by todays standards not so much. It was puppets, blatantly obvious, and again typical for Charles Band. And the special effects, well let's not even go there.This movie wasn't particularly entertaining, and I will never watch it again, that much is certain.

This picture has the rank of being not just one of the earliest, but also one of the most whacked-out flicks that Full Moon ever produced, and it was one of their biggest ever hits. I do like it but not all that much. It's very cute but it's definitely nothing great. In fact, it's a wee bit of an endurance test! My first and primary annoyance: It isn't really about the ghoulies! They're mere window dressing for a strange and complicated story, and the ones that do appear are laughable! They look like s****y old diseased sock puppets, and that's not easy for me to say because the sequel is one of my all-time favourite horror movies, I'd strongly urge you to check out that one it you wanna see a Ghoulies movie done right. It's so horribly in-your-face and dead to-the-max 80s! From the wardrobe to the attitudes and practically everything, particularly when it comes to some of the more cartoony and obnoxious smaller characters, like that old guy who's constantly wearing shades.. What the hell was that asshole on at the time!? Break dancing scene, what the f**k!?! I really can't stand the red-headed Lisa Pelican as "Rebecca", she's so embarrassingly melodramatic with all of her lines and whenever the camera's focusing on her face she's always off in a fog and terribly posing as if like Sophia Loren! Awful actress. I also didn't like the two dwarf characters. Now I've nothing against those kinds of people, in fact to me their performances were actually very good, but they weren't monsters, and in my opinion to jerk around with the audience that they are when there's already supposed to be little monsters running around is just bogus. It's the same cheap gag that they would later base the entire rotten fourth 'Ghoulies' movie around. I positively adored the spirited performance of Michael Des Barnes as the delightfully fiendish "Malcolm Graves". He really gives it his all and even though he goes ridiculously grandiose with it, it sure works. I can't recall ever seeing another horror movie villain quite like him. I love all of his charmingly bizarre inflections, how he goes from softly-spoken to roaring in a second! And it's so awesomely wrong when he demands to kiss his son to steal his soul!! I thought he was far more charismatic than the guy who played his son, I just found iy plain cringe-worthy whenever he was trying to be commanding. They also should've ditched the silly and unnecessary narrating. It was like I was watching Troll 2 all over again.. I think that I may have liked this better if they'd have just done away with any pretence of it being about little monsters and made it a straight-up story of resurrected sorcerous evil battling against its estranged offspring it could've stood on its own merit surely! I mean they certainly should have kept the ghoulies in it, just not made it out as if the entire movie was about them.. And you know, I'm wrong in a way because the marketing did pay off big time for the studio, and if I don't quite get it then I'm still very glad because it allowed them to create some later gems that I do wholeheartedly love and regard as classics. It's such a weird little mish-mash of a flick. By degrees it's a crazy party horror movie, then a domestic drama, then it's an epic magical fight of good vs evil - it's everything except a solid horror that knows what it wants to be, and that's a bit of a shame. I'm not saying it isn't fun, but it's a mess. It's a fun mess! Everything about it is extremely tacky and rough but that could perhaps only add to the appeal for some fans. It's certainly not lacking in creativity. It's a fun and entertaining piece of horror trash if you're in the right frame of mind and is worthy of a watch every now and then. "Shut up, goddammit!"

Two foolish idiots move into an old mansion, where satanic rituals commence. The man of the house gets an overwhelming need to be possessed by demons. I can't be bothered to write more than that for the plot. In all honesty, if you decide to watch this movie in the first place, you're a masochist. I guess that makes me a masochist as well, considering I saw this years ago and hated it then. What made me think I'd feel differently? Anyone that enjoys this movie deserves to be ostracized immediately. I'm all for opinions, but I can't see how anyone can say with a straight face "I enjoyed this movie" The Ghoulies themselves are not a big part of the movie. When they appear, they look like puppets. I realize this was done in 85, but it comes across as horribly dated. Another thing that bothers me is the cliché of the plot. Why is it that somebody wants to conjure up a demon by doing a satanic ritual all the time? It's been done to death. Nothing much happens in this movie. It's all about boring black magic and sorcery of sorts. As people have pointed out, the box is very misleading and manipulative. There isn't much gore to speak of, unless you count a weird demon chick with a long tongue, and two midget's as gore. This movie was so boring that I was doing other things at the same time simultaneously. The only scene I enjoyed in the movie is the thanksgiving dinner scene. Everybody wears these surreal looking sun-glasses, and Ghoulie creatures start popping out of a turkey. The acting is pretty bad. Lisa Pelikan was solid in Lionheart, but was bland here. Peter Liapis shouts way too much as the lead. He tries to ham it up to no avail. Everybody was so unlikable in this movieHow on earth did this spawn 3 sequels? This was clearly trying to be like Gremlins, but it forgot to add an ingredient. ENTERTAINMENT! unless you wanna be tortured for 80 minutes or so, avoid this movie like you would a chick after a bad date. Three more sequels to go, ugh. 1/10

Yes indeed the 1980's when I was but a very impressionable teenager, it felt like my every waking hour was spent in my local videostore, and when I was in school, I was always thinking about what movie I was going to watch next.As was the case back then, a cool looking cover was always the catalyst for me to hire the movie regardless of whether or not I enjoyed the movie.So Ghoulies was to be my introduction to the cinematic world of a certain film producer Charles Band, and his company Empire Pictures. Having just recently revisited the world of Ghoulies, and just about to embark on my fortieth year on this earth, I have hand on heart began to realise that what I liked when I was a teenager, has not remained the case as I've gotten older.No matter what the detractors think of Charles Band's riff on Gremlins, the movie does have more plus points than negatives. The overall acting is pretty spot on, Peter Liapis as Jonathan Graves truly devours his part as Jonathan Graves, heir apparent to the supernatural throne left to him by his late demented father Malcolm, Michael Des Barres.Des Barres has never been an actor that I've been to keen on, maybe it's his accent that I find somewhat off putting, but then again if you've ever watched him in Diary Of A Sex Addict, the title pretty much summed that movie up, but let us not forget his turn in Nightflyers.You know when your a teenager, and you just watch copious amounts of nonsense, you tens to forget what you've watched and just who was in it, back in 85, I had no idea who Jack Nance was, but then I still hadn't watched Eraserhead, but Nance participation was a bit of a shock to me, I did find myself doing a double take when I spotted him hiding behind that fake beard, but you never forget that crazy eyed stare.But what about the movie itself. Like I've mentioned previously, viewing the movie as an adult, you still sensed the atmosphere, those pesky Ghoulies, still look as cheap and cheerful and not quite scary as ever, but Luca Bercovici does capture some pretty good stuff on camera.Of particular mention was the scene when Malcolm rises from his grave, quite striking and very well lit.Ghoulies was my first introduction to Charles Band, but it wasn't until I watched Trancers, that my interest in Band's output truly took hold of my teenage years, and throughout the next two decades.Ghoulies 2 was a smart little follow up three years later, ignore the next two sequels, as really you can't hold a candle to the original.My rating is 6/10