TheLittleSongbird From the very cool and quite freaky DVD cover and the intriguing ideas and themes, The Ghouls really did have potential to be good. Unfortunately it was just a very messy movie where the low budget very badly hurt it.The best thing about The Ghoul is the performance of Timothy Muskatell in the lead role. It is not a perfect or great performance by all means, the character is somewhat of a despicable one and Muskatell does fail to bring any empathy or humanity to him and there are a couple of times where he does play hard-nosed a bit too low-key. The good news about the performance though is that it is a commanding and brooding performance with a good deal of assurance and intensity, managing to bring some watchability to the movie. Joseph Pilato also brings some gravitas but isn't used enough to shine properly. The rest of the acting is very amateurish, being so low-key that there doesn't seem to be any acting going on, and the stock and unsubtly one –dimensional characterisation and incredibly stilted dialogue disadvantage them further.What stuck out as particularly bad with The Ghouls was the production values, or lack of, it was made on a very low-budget and it shows through painfully. The sets are basically parking lots and dimly lit sparse rooms, and the continuous shaky camera work not only is distracting in how dizzy it makes one feel, it makes it hard to work out what's going on. A lot of it feels like very random footage hurriedly edited together with little care or coherence. The very poorly recorded (very muddied) music is jarring in style and really distracts from the mood, even overwhelming the dialogue at times. The story had some interesting themes and ideas but unfortunately little is done with them, parts are mentioned and then skipped over or things are under-explained which makes it not an easy movie to follow sometimes, and it drags badly constantly with too long being spent on less-important or irrelevant scenes.The Ghouls doesn't succeed as a fun or scary movie either, it's too tedious and too bleak to be fun (taking the seediness to extremes with gratuitous nudity and even cheaper-looking gore, and the harrowing images and horror elements are so in your face, at times too random in placement and done with the subtlety of a sledgehammer that it becomes too much after a while) and the dull pacing and low-budget severely hurt the atmosphere. The titular creatures similarly make no impression, they are not used anywhere near enough and are poorly made-up, looking more goofy than menacing, also exuding no personality let down a sense of threat.All in all, despite the DVD cover/case and the ideas it had, The Ghouls is a ghoulishly bad movie with Muskatell's performance being the only thing that it has going for it. Some might like it, but this did nothing for me. 2/10 Bethany Cox

lastliberal So, it's a low budget film. That doesn't mean that it can't be put together well and have good acting. Did I mention that it also has zombies? Eric Hayes (Timothy Muskatell) is a stringer that videotapes crime in progress and sells the tapes. After losing out on a chase, he spies a couple of possible rapists. Now, Eric is not a nice man. In fact, he is a sleazeball. He drinks and smokes and does drugs and looks for the sleaziest footage so he can film it and sell it. He doesn't care that someone is getting raped or stabbed or burned; he wants the footage.And, don't forget there are zombies eating brains.After discovering the ghouls on his way home one night, he gets his buddy Clift (Trent Haaga) to help film them. Clift doesn't fare too wheel, so he tries to get his girlfriend Sue (Tina Birchfield) to help.Flashbacks remind him of the lousy life he leads after Sue tells him she saw his tape of "The Kids." Seeing the disabled kid get the better of him was icing on the cake. he was just a big loser. Seeing the disable kid later was disturbing.At the end, I wasn't sure that we had zombies after all because they died just like any man, and they didn't turn Eric despite a bite.The film is more a commentary on society and it's desire for ever more sleazy footage. Who are the real ghouls? The one who live under the streets, or the ones who do the filming, or those of us who watch?

Joe Ebbasi The basic premise of the film is pretty good; it's just the delivery that fails. As with other ultra-low budget horror films, you can spot where the money's been spent and where it's been saved. This film is only around 80 minutes long yet it often drags. This is due to the fact that there just isn't enough of a narrative to sustain the length and this means sections feel like padding before the budget kicks in towards the end with the gore and effects. Shots linger unnecessarily and many conversations and subplots are simply redundant. Many things crop up that do not serve to propel the story forward or to delve into the films themes. Character interaction is unconvincing and as ever with these films the dialogue is wooden. The budget could surely have been spread around a bit, meaning they could have hired hired a few extras for the bar scenes and set-up a better office for the news channel 'mogul' who looks like Michael Madsen's fat older brother. The underground scenes at the end are commendable for a film like this and the guy who's been skinned alive is reasonably convincing in his agony until he starts to sound more like he's got bad cramp rather than had all of skin removed and been hung up on a hook. This makes me think the Ghouls have a little more intelligence and civilisation than they let on as where they had previously torn apart their victims and eaten them on the spot, they seem to be preparing beardy's friend for consumption in a different way. Perhaps they are curing/smoking him like ham. Speaking of smoking, there was perhaps some kind of poorly-conceived comment on the tobacco industry implied through the chain-smoking in this film. People who make a living off of other people's misery/misfortune. This film dragged on too much to keep my interest and the dodgy sound once again made it hard to follow - dialogue is at times inaudible but then at the same time sound effects are excessively loud, meaning I had to keep adjusting the volume. This is the third modern ultra-low budget film I have seen and it is certainly better then the others: 'Zombie Chronicles' & 'Zombies vs Vampires'.

stormruston This is the best amateur effort I have watched in a very long time. It is not great, but it is very good for what it is...some stock footage of fires/crimes.. news reel stuff ..to open up on a very interesting story and a few ugly characters.This is low budget , but the stabbing scene was horrific and strong, as was the "rape" that turned out to be cannibalism. WOW.All the Characters are unappealing and the zombies , tho not the worse I have seen , are not too believable. This does not mean it was poorly acted, it is not, and I was quickly drawn into this quirky movie.It is not for everyone, movies like this never are, but if you tolerate average filming, interesting characters, and some disturbing scenes of violence and a simple but cool story line, give this a try, what is 3.00 bucks for a rental anyways? If you do not like it, turn it off. Personally, I was impressed with this low budget effort.