Ghoulies (1985)

Ghoulies (1985) is cheap, cheap trash. Sub-community theater-level garbage. It makes Troll look like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. It makes Puppetmaster look like Nosferatu. It has only one thing going for it - the ghoulies themselves, who are creative and have senses of humor and are generally gross in a fun way. 

Wait! What's this, you say? A year before this was another movie where humorous little green monsters are summoned and wreak terrible havoc? What's it called?

Oh yeah, Gremlins. Gremlins crushes this movie in every way. Although, if I'm being entirely fair to this movie, I read on Wikipedia that this movie was actually intended to come out in 1983 or so, meaning it is roughly contemporary with Gremlins. But enough comparisons, let's take this turd on its own merits, or lack thereof. 

It opens with one of the least fun, most poorly acted sequences I've ever seen, where a many-years-ago coven meeting goes awry when a sacrifice can't be performed. Yawn. Then there is an abrupt cut to the titles, which is made doubly jarring by jaunty, lively music totally at odds with the F-class acting we just saw. 

The remainder of the movie deals with the son of the coven leader, in the present day, as he tries to assume his father's powers and summons Le Ghoulies in the meantime. And the ghoulies ... boy are they a trip. They are clearly cheap plastic dolls covered in vaseline, but whoever is animating them is doing a great job, because they move in JUST such a way that they are funny and have personalities. Which can't be easy given their construction. 

I was five when it came out, and probably about eight when I saw it first, but it was a pretty popularly known movie among my set in the late '80s, early '90s. And honestly, half the charm is the poster/VHS cover, showing a ghoulie popping out of a toilet with the positively submental tagline "They'll get you in the end!" To an eight-year-old, though, that is solid genius of the highest order. The Moby Dick of taglines and concepts, if you will.

The movie has some truly bizarre sequences that seem like the belong in another movie completely - when the green-glowy-eyed sorcerer summons two little people to be his familiars/helpers/jesters/whatever they are. It's so strange, and seems like it should be in an F-grade Italian sword-and-sorcery film. 

Or the totally '80s Sunglasses At Night Dinner Party, where the ghoulies hide in the food for no apparent reason, and then becomes a truly stupid seance, maybe the worst committed to film. Or the breakdancing stoner who seems be simply having a seizure right in front of us. 

Oh! Mariska Hargitay is in this, her debut movie (!!), many many years before Law and Order: SVU.

But make no mistake: this was a highly successful film. Made for a million dollars, it became a huge cult classic on VHS, probably in the eight-to-ten market that I fell in, and ended up grossing like $35,000,000 (!). The director was Luca Percovici, who made a few '80s horror movies, including Frightmare, which I have fonder memories of. 

There were several sequels made, but only the first one, Ghoulies II, was released in the 1980's, so I don't have to suffer too much more.