bowmanblue I've always loved horror films – ever since I was a child. I remember back in the eighties being a young boy and walking through the video rental shop. There, I would browse films which I was not going to be (legally) able to watch until I was eighteen. One such video box depicted – what I would describe through my child-like eyes – one of the most grossest monsters I'd ever seen. It was effectively a green, slimy, mutant 'baby' coming out of a toilet. It looked so cool. I just had to see that film.And I did. I can't remember how. Maybe I annoyed my Dad suitably until I wore him down and he hired it for me. Maybe I saw it at a friend's. However, I loved it. It was truly as gross as I had hoped.However, I'm now pushing forty and decided to buy it on Blu-ray. Part of me wished I hadn't. I think I'd rather have remembered it as the coolest cover art box of the eighties rather than what it is. What it is is a pretty low budget, rubbish little horror film with bad puppets as monsters and terrible acting.Okay, so I didn't hate-hate it – I was just disappointed. A failed demon ritual catches up with some students at university and one of them decides to call back the monsters (aka 'Ghoulies') to serve him. Things go wrong and they start killing people. Only they're about as threatening now as Kermit the Frog. Despite being nicely crafted puppets, they're still puppets. My adult brain couldn't look at them without seeing through their latex skin to the hand operating them from within. It was because of that I just couldn't take them seriously as a threat. How they kill anyone is a mystery. I think if I saw one in real life I may be creeped out, but I'd just step on it to kill it.The acting is terrible (no surprise there for an eighties horror film), but sometimes you can overlook that if the script is good, the characters at least a little bit fun or, if nothing else, likable. None of that here. The second half of the film does pick up, but the first half was so forgettable you might as well just skip it until you get to the bits with the – not that scary – monsters.Yes, the green Ghoulie in the toilet scene is still there and it is quite funny. But really some films are better left remembered through nostalgic eyes. There are plenty of classic eighties films that may be cheesy, but are still fun. I found this a little too hard to watch nowadays. And now I find there are multiple sequels to watch.

Harriet Deltubbo Laughs and seriousness are both in this movie, I think. It holds the attention but demands complete suspension of logic. A young man and his girlfriend move into an man's old mansion home, where he becomes possessed by a need to control ancient demons. This does remind me a lot of Ghoulies II. The comparisons are obvious, and just like that film, I like it enough, but I don't think it's great or all that really good. I happen to know places and people, some that might pass for the world in Ghoulies. That said, the directing, music, editing, etc. are not focused on at all. If you can find it on DVD or Bluray for under $7, buy it, but it won't be worth much more than that to you because it's a bit outdated.

FlashCallahan In this, the poor mans Gremlins, some eighties audience members from top of the pops inherit a house, and have a party, which includes the bloke from police academy 3, but with all parties, they go into a room where they haven't been before and find a symbol on the floor.It turns out that years ago, one of the members of Duran Durans project Power station was a devil or something worshipped, and made weird latex animals pop up from nowhere, and also made his eyes go blue.The new family start to become obsessed with the past and decide to wear even funnier clothes than they had in the eighties, and act like goths for no reason.And thrown into the mix, we get two midgets who act like Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, and fight with the monsters.In the eighties, these films were rife and were released almost every other week. But for some reason, this really became a cult favourite, and for the life of me, I cannot begin to think why.The effects are awful, the acting is very bad, and the story, just doesn't excite or stimulate.It's trying to be Gremlins, and that movie is a bona-fide cult favourite, because it's actually brilliant and highly original.This is just bad..

kclipper This is one of the first of the low-budget direct-to-video from Charles Band's Empire Pictures of the 1980s' VHS craze, and its about as silly and illogical as anything you'll see from that era. Peter Liapis (Kyle Mclachlan's evil twin perhaps?) moves into an old house, and in his attempt to restore it, he becomes obsessed with ceremonial black magic. In his rituals he manages to conjure up personifications of the demons; Vepar, Procell and Astaroth in the form of bogus-looking, puppet-like goblins. This is hopelessly contrived and laughable as the ghastly dwarfs hang around and wreck havoc on a group of unlikable, snobbish idiots after Liapis fulfills his final master ritual. Its typical Charles Band stuff as the cast takes the ridiculousness seriously, and one can only suspect that the idea was loosely ripped off from the incomparable hit, 'Gremlins' Its fun if you like to watch slimy, rubbery toys attack people, and some will get a laugh out of the most absurd and incoherent of plot-lines.