I don't know why people claim to hate this movie, because I love it to death. As a representative of the 80's teenage puppet horror schlock genre, it has no equal. Plus it has -- in addition to the most gratuitous midgets to appear on screen in the entire history of midget cinema, and I'm including "The Terror of Tiny Town" in that generalization -- a fabulous, frothing, scenery-gnawing performance by Michael Des Barres, who fancied himself an actor for quite awhile despite being continually proved wrong.
The movie opens with a group of robed satanists preparing to sacrifice a baby in the basement of a mansion. As the head satanist raises his knife, a woman darts out of the crowd and shrieks "No! Not our child!" thus revealing the head satanist, Malcolm (Michael Des Barres) as the baby's father. Malcolm gives the woman a poisonous look with his glowing green eyes and summons puppet demons to eat her for her intransigence; in the mêlée, no one notices as Wolfgang (Jack Nance, the artist formerly known as "Eraserhead") gathers up the baby and spirits him away.
Fast forward 20-something years. The baby has grown up to be Jonathan (Peter Liapis) and has inherited the mansion where he was once almost killed on an altar and where, presumably, his mother was eaten by evil puppets. He must not know the history of the place, though, because he moves right on in with his girlfriend Rebecca (the cat-faced Lisa Pelikan) and begins to clean the place up. They appear to be college students with the usual quota of "wacky" friends without whom no 80's movie would be complete: the slutty girl, the nerd, the stupid hunk, etc.
During the cleanup, Jonathan discovers a pentagram on the basement floor and opens a trunk full of his father's satanist regalia. This frees his spirit to leap headlong into the wholesale worship of evil, despite the fact that he has never shown a tendency toward black magic before in his life and was, up to this moment, known as a pretty decent chap.
At a housewarming party, Jonathan shows his friends the basement set-up and, having ascertained that he needs seven people to actually do any useful evil, he chants a spell in front of them. They make fun of him and he takes it badly, but the end result -- unknown to his friends -- is the summoning of a dozen ugly little demons of the sort who ate his mother. Oedipus? Can you hear me calling you, son?
When Rebecca catches him swanning around the basement in satin robes, she stomps off in disgust. He woos her back, only to scare the crap out of her with some impromptu satanistic S&M action in the bedroom. When she leaves again, he decides the only way to get this party started is to get him some minions. Accordingly, he zaps Rebecca with Satan mind control, invites all his friends to dinner, hypnotizes them so they won't notice the puppet monsters drooling in the soup, and "completes the circle". When next we see his friends, they are wearing long white robes and sitting around the pentagram in the basement. For an amateur, Jonathan is pretty good.
Suddenly there is a flash! and a bang! and two tiny, ugly creatures appear in front of Jonathan, ready to do his bidding. Thus do we meet Grizzel and Greedigut, surely the worst movie roles ever essayed by midget actors (Peter Risch and the enchantingly-named Tamara De Treaux). They promise everlasting devotion and gambol off to do Jonathan's bidding, while his friends, freed from their spell, wander around the house smoking doobies and screwing in the bushes as the demons pick them off one at a time.
Unfortunately, Johnathan reckoned without Malcolm. As the ghoulies happily disembowel his friends, each "sacrifice" gives the spirit of the Decadent Marquis a little more strength. Eventually he bursts out of his grave on the mansion grounds and strides into the house -- rotting as he goes -- to do battle with the punk kid he should have dispatched years ago in the basement. Hijinks ensue, Jonathan defeats Malcolm at his own game (much to the detriment of poor Wolfgang), his dead friends come back to life, and everyone flees the mansion at a run. Predictably (because there were sequels) the back seat of Jonathan's car is revealed to be full of puppet ghoulies.
A couple of things. First, who was Peter Liapis and why didn't I know about him before? He's really hot. I mean, really, really hot. Second, Lisa Pelikan has a place in my heart because she appeared in the schlockiest ever Movie of the Week, "I Want To Keep My Baby!" with Mariel Hemingway. Third, Michael Des Barres was NOT an actor, and should never have let his wife write "I'm With The Band" because the whole time I was watching Ghoulies I was thinking, you slept with a Plaster Caster? The Hell?
On second thought, maybe this movie wasn't so great after all.
The movie opens with a group of robed satanists preparing to sacrifice a baby in the basement of a mansion. As the head satanist raises his knife, a woman darts out of the crowd and shrieks "No! Not our child!" thus revealing the head satanist, Malcolm (Michael Des Barres) as the baby's father. Malcolm gives the woman a poisonous look with his glowing green eyes and summons puppet demons to eat her for her intransigence; in the mêlée, no one notices as Wolfgang (Jack Nance, the artist formerly known as "Eraserhead") gathers up the baby and spirits him away.
Fast forward 20-something years. The baby has grown up to be Jonathan (Peter Liapis) and has inherited the mansion where he was once almost killed on an altar and where, presumably, his mother was eaten by evil puppets. He must not know the history of the place, though, because he moves right on in with his girlfriend Rebecca (the cat-faced Lisa Pelikan) and begins to clean the place up. They appear to be college students with the usual quota of "wacky" friends without whom no 80's movie would be complete: the slutty girl, the nerd, the stupid hunk, etc.
During the cleanup, Jonathan discovers a pentagram on the basement floor and opens a trunk full of his father's satanist regalia. This frees his spirit to leap headlong into the wholesale worship of evil, despite the fact that he has never shown a tendency toward black magic before in his life and was, up to this moment, known as a pretty decent chap.
At a housewarming party, Jonathan shows his friends the basement set-up and, having ascertained that he needs seven people to actually do any useful evil, he chants a spell in front of them. They make fun of him and he takes it badly, but the end result -- unknown to his friends -- is the summoning of a dozen ugly little demons of the sort who ate his mother. Oedipus? Can you hear me calling you, son?
When Rebecca catches him swanning around the basement in satin robes, she stomps off in disgust. He woos her back, only to scare the crap out of her with some impromptu satanistic S&M action in the bedroom. When she leaves again, he decides the only way to get this party started is to get him some minions. Accordingly, he zaps Rebecca with Satan mind control, invites all his friends to dinner, hypnotizes them so they won't notice the puppet monsters drooling in the soup, and "completes the circle". When next we see his friends, they are wearing long white robes and sitting around the pentagram in the basement. For an amateur, Jonathan is pretty good.
Suddenly there is a flash! and a bang! and two tiny, ugly creatures appear in front of Jonathan, ready to do his bidding. Thus do we meet Grizzel and Greedigut, surely the worst movie roles ever essayed by midget actors (Peter Risch and the enchantingly-named Tamara De Treaux). They promise everlasting devotion and gambol off to do Jonathan's bidding, while his friends, freed from their spell, wander around the house smoking doobies and screwing in the bushes as the demons pick them off one at a time.
Unfortunately, Johnathan reckoned without Malcolm. As the ghoulies happily disembowel his friends, each "sacrifice" gives the spirit of the Decadent Marquis a little more strength. Eventually he bursts out of his grave on the mansion grounds and strides into the house -- rotting as he goes -- to do battle with the punk kid he should have dispatched years ago in the basement. Hijinks ensue, Jonathan defeats Malcolm at his own game (much to the detriment of poor Wolfgang), his dead friends come back to life, and everyone flees the mansion at a run. Predictably (because there were sequels) the back seat of Jonathan's car is revealed to be full of puppet ghoulies.
A couple of things. First, who was Peter Liapis and why didn't I know about him before? He's really hot. I mean, really, really hot. Second, Lisa Pelikan has a place in my heart because she appeared in the schlockiest ever Movie of the Week, "I Want To Keep My Baby!" with Mariel Hemingway. Third, Michael Des Barres was NOT an actor, and should never have let his wife write "I'm With The Band" because the whole time I was watching Ghoulies I was thinking, you slept with a Plaster Caster? The Hell?
On second thought, maybe this movie wasn't so great after all.