jerjerbinks987678 Let me start by saying why I saw this movie. my 17 year old half brother is in a phase right now where he's been watching a lot of older 70's and 80s films. He had seen gremlins recently and like most people, enjoyed it. Thinking that this piece of S*** would be just as good, he recorded it on our dvr, I think showtime had it on or something. He asked me and my mom to watch it with him. This movie is beyond bad, I put it in my top 3 of worst movies I have ever sat through. The plot- the acting- I don't even know where to start its all just a huge train wreck. There are parts that are supposed to be scary but instead are so lame and pathetic that me and my brother just gave each other this confused"what in the hell are we watching?" look. Go for a jog, find a book, do anything besides wasting your time watching this.

Leofwine_draca GHOULIES was, I think, the first rip-off to come out after the success of GREMLINS. Many, many others followed, many of them stretching out into series of their own: we had CRITTERS, MUNCHIES, LITTLE DEVILS: THE BIRTH and many more besides, each of them films about ugly little monsters doing their best to hurt or kill people. In fact, producer Charles Band would go on to riff on this topic time and again with his Empire/Full Moon production banners; we had the likes of DOLLS, PUPPET MASTER and many more besides, but GHOULIES was there first. Does that mean it's any good? The answer is yes and no.Fans expecting the quality of the Joe Dante film, a decent script, and intelligence should look elsewhere. This is a film that has none of that. What it does have is a low budget, some cheesy actors and the kind of special effects that have dated badly by today's Hollywood standards. It's a campy '80s horror film complete with those laser-eye special effects that were so popular after the debut of light sabers, and more bad acting than you can shake a stick at. It's a film where all the clichés are present and correct, from the assembled weirdos and nerds who made up the cast, to the spooky old house, the Satanist lurking in the basement and much more besides. The ghoulies themselves are almost incidental to the story, appearing in a handful of scenes as the minions of a black magician out to bump off the innocent teenagers who've gathered for the party from hell.Although this is a film aimed squarely at kids, it's a pretty unpleasant ride with some cheap gore effects and evidence of heavy cutting, so one can only wonder what the uncut version would have been like. I enjoyed the look of the ghoulies, which were animated by John Carl Buechler, even though it's obvious that they were made on a budget, and at least the movie is fast paced, running through the usual clichés at speed. A few notable actors pop up, like Jack Nance (ERASERHEAD) as an old guy with a hidden secret and Mariska Hargitay (daughter of Mickey) as a pretty potential victim. There's a brief turn for scream queen Bobbie Bresee and a couple of evil dwarfs, although I do find it slightly repulsive when dwarfs are cast as evil folk purely due to their size, although I suppose their presence is played for laughs here and they are quite sympathetic.Anyway, folk who watch this know what to expect, and as a trip down memory lane it serves as a fitting reminder of just how cheesy and campy the 1980s really were for horror films. Not a great film by any means, this is, however, quite a bit of fun and it did extraordinarily well at the box office, which meant that three sequels followed.

jessegehrig Do you know how hard it is to refinance your home? How hard it is to get a business loan? An estimated million dollars was pooled together to make this movie! What the f*ck? This movie could have become five remodeled homes, or a dentist office or a burger joint, instead it became Ghoulies. I mean, what does that mean? Is that a knock against the human race, y'know like proof that we're all a bunch of pieces of sh*t? If you had a million dollars would you spend it on Ghoulies, I mean you could buy a house and pay off your student loans and still have a fortune left to put into savings for retirement, does this movie seem like a BETTER idea? Are you sure?

utgard14 Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis) inherits his Satanist father's mansion. He throws a party and starts conjuring up Ghoulies, which are sort of demonic goblin things. This is a garbage Gremlins knock-off with no humor, charm, or entertainment value. The best thing about it is that it has one of the coolest movie posters of the 1980's, with the Ghoulie coming up out of the toilet. It's just not a fun movie at all. It's nasty and cheap. Avoid this mess. See Gremlins instead. Or you can just skip this one and watch the better Ghoulies part 2. But yeah, Gremlins is better than that too. So just watch Gremlins or even Critters over this dreck.