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THE GHOULS (2003)
Makes me want to see CHUD again Some zombie movies have a point to make - the zombies might be eating human flesh, but us despicable humans, we're the real zombies. The Ghouls chooses its title well, because its characters are more ghouls than zombies (if you don't get that point early, you'll have it hammered at you regularly for over an hour), though its zombies are just homeless cannibals. The Ghouls stars Timothy Muskatell as Eric Hayes, a "stringer" who films the most sleazy, depraved shit that sleazy, depraved people will let him film. About a half hour into The Ghouls, I noticed I was waiting for Hayes to demonstrate a single positive quality - a sense of humor, enough humanity to hate his job, enough wit to like his job, anything. He has sad and pathetic ex-girlfriend issues (she sleeps with her wig on!), and when he beats a couple of ghouls off of his car, the best thing he can think of to say is "Fucker! Fuck you!" By the end of the movie I was still waiting, and he'd been outsmarted by a guy with Down's Syndrome. One night, so drunk he tries filming the incident even though his camera doesn't even have film in it, Hayes witnesses a couple of homeless guys (doing their best hunchback lurch) cannibalizing a screaming woman. What a scoop! So he tries to get more footage of these people, with film this time. He starts by questioning the locals ("You know something! I can see it in your eyes!") and puts himself and his one nominal friend in danger. Joseph Pilato - yes, from Day Of The Dead, haven't seen him in a while - does liven things up during his scenes, as he cruelly talks down to Hayes like the loathsome idiot he is. I'm not clear on exactly what he does with the footage once he buys it, but he does seem sleazy enough to forge a business around the concept. Trent Haaga is also a little more engaging than the lead, as another stringer who actually seems to have enough wit to like his job. Hayes isn't interesting enough to follow through a story like this. Haaga's stringer should've been the lead, while Hayes should've been the friend. Shot on video, The Ghouls has all the lighting problems that come with that territory, and a few more I hadn't seen before like one scene where multiple police cars have their flashing lights on. The "car that won't start" cliché is used twice in one scene. We do get a few mild, visceral thrills - Hayes' venture into the subterranean ghoul den at the end in particular - but I never shook the feeling that this was supposed to be more of a character study than a scare flick, and what is there to study about this void that is Hayes? As for that "people are the real ghouls" notion...somebody out there has to be watching this stuff. We might think lowly of paparazzi, but it's regular people who keep them in business. I don't think pics of Brad and Angelina are quite in the same league as video of children burning alive though, and The Ghouls never suggests what kind of market there is for the stringers' footage. They're bigger ghouls than Hayes is; Hayes is just a loser with a camera. (c) Brian J. Wright 2005 BACK TO THE G's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |