GHOULIES II
Amazingly, worse than it sounds
I rented the original Ghoulies back when it was in the new release section. It sucked hard enough that it put me off of renting another installment in this series until now. I saw the original on my ol' BETA, people. That's what, thirteen years? Must've sucked pretty hard to keep me away for that long.
So there ya go - that's why I left this fourth from the end. And let me tell you, it lives up to my expectations as being almost completely, unwatchably terrible. The Ghoulies - ugly little puppets without any of the personality of the Critters, let alone the Gremlins - find their way to a carnival attraction (that features a working guillotine where any loser can stick his head in) and make it the most popular on the lot. Then they bust out and havoc ensues. Meanwhile, there's a "boo-hiss" corporate exec who wants to shut the place down. Gee, d'ya think he'll die on the toilet?
Sucks pretty hard all around. It's juvenile and stupid, but so were the Gremlins movies (and the first Critters) and they were still fun. PG-13 all the way, it's really closer to a PG. The movie's idea of snappy dialogue is a midget saying "he found it a tiny bit tiny". The Ghoulies all look different but all act alike, unlike the Gremlins. The pace is plodding, the laughs hovering around zero, and it's all about as fun as licking paint off a wall.
The merits to this film are few and far between. It does feature a W.A.S.P. song, and that's pretty cool. The bad news, is that it's "Scream Until You Like It", which isn't very good. (BTW, even though I couldn't find this on any of my CD's, I am definitely familiar with this song. What gives? It's from the Live: In The RAW album, a period in the band's career where all their songs sounded the same) And when you compare it to the use of Slayer's "Angel Of Death" in Gremlins II, well, it just pales, man, it pales. And when Phil Fonacaro isn't being annoying ("a wee bit wee"), he's sometimes marginally intriguing as the Shakespeare-quoting midget who thinks he should be off playing the fool in some King Lear production but for some reason sticks around in the carnival.
Additionally, this movie brings me a step towards solving my After Midnight dilemma - the girl I'm looking for is definitely not Kerry Remsen. But c'mon, none of this adds up to a movie that's any good. To be avoided by all but people who think that the only thing funnier than the tag line -They'll get you in the end!" is "They'll get you in the end...again!" As for you few: get help.