Ghoulies

1985 "They'll get you in the end."
4.2| 1h21m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 18 January 1985 Released
Producted By: Empire Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A young man and his girlfriend move into the man's old mansion home, where he becomes possessed by a need to control ancient demons.

... View More
Stream Online

Stream with Prime Video

Director

Producted By

Empire Pictures

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

Stream on any device, 30-day free trial Watch Now

Trailers & Images

Reviews

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
SnoopyStyle Jonathan Graves inherits his late father's mansion. His father led a cult for Lucifer and tried to kill him as a baby. He was rescued by the caretaker Wolfgang before his father completed the ritual. His girlfriend Rebecca discovers a demonic book in the library. Jonathan discovers the ritual site in the dungeon and his father's notes. Rebecca throws a party with their friends. After the party, Jonathan uses the notes to call up demons and gain demonic powers.The acting is mostly amateurish. This is notable for a young Mariska Hargitay in a supporting role as one of the friends. Michael Des Barres and Jack Nance are a couple of veteran actors. Nobody is doing great work here. The special effects are somewhat cheesy and not shot that well. The creepy sharp-teethed demons are slimy puppets that are almost funny in their cheesy appearances. Everything screams weak 80s B-horror. All the comedy comes from its cheese.
Paul Magne Haakonsen 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.
Foreverisacastironmess 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!"
gavin6942 A young man (Peter Liapis) and his girlfriend (Lisa Pelikan) move into an man's old mansion home, where he becomes possessed by a need to control ancient demons.This comes from the golden age of Charles Band's producing, despite the film's incredibly low ranking. I am baffled how this could get under a 4, as it has all the fun and charm of the 1980s, and is (in my opinion) far more entertaining than "Puppet Master".This movie serves as Mariska Hargitay's film debut (and I am sure she is quite proud). More interestingly, Jeffrey Combs could have starred, but was not chosen during casting. He ended up playing another magician in "Doctor Mordrid" anyway, so I guess that worked out alright.Why this film has such a poor following, with viewers saying it "belongs in the toilet" is beyond me. I see worse films than this almost every day.