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Released by: MVD Rewind
Released on: September 12th, 2023.
Director: Luca Bercovici
Cast: Michael Des Barres, Peter Liapis, Lisa Pelikan, Mariska Hargitay
Year: 1984
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Ghoulies – Movie Review:
When Luca Bercovici’s 1984 film, Ghoulies, begins, Malcolm Graves (Michael Des Barres), the leader of a Satanic cult is all set to sacrifice an adorable baby boy to their dark lord and master but before the deed can be done the infant's mother whisks him off to safety (with some help from Jack Nance!). Years later, that baby boy is now a young man named Jonathan (Peter Liapis) and he's inherited a creepy old house. Along with his girlfriend, Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan), he moves right in with the intentions of cleaning up the old place, paying no mind to the strange old caretaker named Wolfgang (Jack Nance) who is just sort of hanging around.
Soon enough, he's having his friends over to party. Mike (Scott Thomason), Mark (Ralph Seymour), Donna (Mariska Hargitay), Dick (Keith Joe Dick), Eddie (David Dayan) and Anastasia (Victoria Catlin) all show up to get done and it goes well enough until Jonathan puzzlingly opts to end the night with a black mass of sorts in the basement. From here, he starts to change and as he dons some sinister looking robes and builds a Satanic church in his basement, he enlists the aid of two midgets from the netherworld named Greedigut (Tamara De Treaux) and Grizzel (Peter Risch) to do his bidding. What he doesn't realize is that he's also unleashed some weird, Muppety demons into the world, demons that are hell-bent on destruction and… hiding in toilets?
Directed by Luca Bercovici for Charles Band's Empire Pictures, Ghoulies is pretty goofy stuff, a PG-13 creature feature meant to cash in on the popularity of films like Gremlins at the time. The opening scene is great but from there it sort of meanders around dealing with Jonathan's gradual transition to 'the dark side.' While this is happening we see an inordinate amount of footage wherein he and Rebecca aimlessly wander around the house a lot. The different friends that populate the supporting cast are an interesting mix of weird eighties clichés - we get Dick, the big ladies' man who thinks of nothing but sex, two stoners in the form of Mike and Mark, and a couple of sexy lady types with Anastasia and Donna. It's kind of neat seeing Mariska Hargitay here in an early role. Really though, they're there to provide either comic relief or cannon fodder.
So having said that, why watch this? Two reason. The first is Jack Nance. He's woefully underused here but by the time that the movie is over he will have shot lasers out of his eyes and seeing Jack Nance shoot lasers out of his eyes is pretty fucking rad. The second reason is the titular beasties themselves. The creature design here is an interesting mix of the cute and the grotesque and while they often move like the puppets that they basically are rather than flesh and blood creatures, it doesn't matter. These are some neat looking monsters and they're quirky and weird enough that any time they are on screen. The movie is fairly hypnotic.
Ghoulies – UHD/Blu-ray Review:
Ghoulies arrives on UHD from MVD Rewind in an HEVC encoded 2160p transfer taken with HDR10 and Dolby Vision enhancement framed at 1.85.1 widescreen taken from a 2023 4K restoration (16-Bit Scan of the Original Camera Negative) of the film presented with Dolby Vision and HDR. Picture quality here is really strong and the HDR makes the colors pop quite nicely, without them appearing too saturated or boosted. Black levels are nice and deep and skin tones look lifelike and accurate. There’s quite a bit more detail noticeable on the UHD than on the included Blu-ray disc, which also looks great by 1080p standards, and some nice depth and texture here as well. Elements used for transfer were clearly in great shape as there isn’t much at all in the way of print damage to note, and the picture always looks properly filmic.
The English language 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo track, which comes with optional English subtitles, sounds just fine. The track is balanced and the score and effects have some depth to them. You’ll have no trouble understanding the dialogue and the track is clean and properly balanced throughout the duration of the movie.
Extras on the UHD disc start off with an archival audio commentary with director/co-writer Luca Bercovici. This track definitely has its moments but there are a few too many stretches of dead air or moments where Bercoivi simply falls into that dreaded commentary trap wherein the participant(s) simply tell us what we're seeing on screen. When he's discussing the making of the movie it's interesting as he sheds some light on the effects, the cast, the crew and the story itself but maybe a moderator would have helped to give this more focus.
A second archival commentary by director Luca Bercovici moderated by Jason Andreasen of Terror Transmission from 2016 is also included. This is a fairly scene specific talk that goes over where the opening scene was shot and how they came to use the location, some of the dark elements of the story, the decidedly off-beat casting for the movie, details on and memories of working with the cast and crew members, thoughts on the effects work, some of the plot details and how they translate to specific scenes, the film's success at the box office and on home video, the use of contact lenses in the movie, the 'buddy' elements that exist between some of the characters, whether or not the movie is actually a horror movie and how the film connects to Robert Palmer and Power Station!
The included Blu-ray features those same two commentary tracks as well as a video introduction by Luca Bercovici that runs just under a minute. More substantial is Editing An Empire, a twenty-eight minute interview with Ted Nicolau. He speaks for twenty-seven minutes about his love of monster movies stemming back to his childhood in Dallas to how he eventually got into the film business and wound up working as an editor. He then goes on to discuss the early stages of his career and how he eventually wound up working for Charles Band for the first time on Tourist Trap. From there, he speaks about what went into cutting Ghoulies, his thoughts on the film and its cast, what eventually happened to Empire Pictures, what Band was like as an employer, how he was clever to get in on the home video boom early on and how he still has a great relationship with Band.
From Toilets To Terror: The Making Of Ghoulies is a half hour long featurette made up of interviews with executive producer Charles Band, composer Richard Band, actor Michael Des Barres and special effects makeup artist John Vulich. This is an interesting and thorough piece that starts with Charles Band explaining how he and Stan Winston originally intended to work on a movie together called Beasties and how when that never happened and Gremlins got big, he reworked the idea into Ghoulies. He also talks about how the movie was originally meant to be in 3-D, which is why there's the scene where the characters all put on strange sunglasses (intended as an indication that those in the audience should put on their own 3-D glasses). We then hear about what went into the shoot, what Richard Band was going for with the score, how some of the effects were created and how Michael Des Barres landed the part and how he feels about it now as an adult.
The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste is a twenty-two minutes interview with Scott Thomson where he talks about playing Mike in the movie, how he had worked with Luca Bercovici before on Parasite 3-D before making Ghoulies, getting along with the director, getting along with his fellow cast members, how he wound up getting the part in the film, memories of shooting some specific scenes including his goofy dance scene, what it was like on set, the makeup effects, and how he appreciates that Ghoulies tried to do something different for its era.
Just For The Chick Man interviews Luca Bercovici for thirty-four minutes about auditioning for a play for the first time because he had a crush on a girl who was cast in it, how this led to him getting into acting, some of the early work he did and what he learned from it, connecting with Charles Band and what it was like working for him, the creature effects in the movie, his thoughts on Empire's product, forming friendships with some of his co-stars and how ridiculously successful the movie was upon its initial release.
Finishing up the extras on the Blu-ray disc are a trailer for the feature and one for Ghoulies II, a still gallery, four TV spots, menus and chapter selection options.
As is the norm with their releases as of late, The MVD Rewind Collection has also done a nice job with the packaging on this release, bundling the two discs and the black case with a limited edition slipcover and, inside the case, a folded poster replicated the cover art.
Ghoulies - The Final Word:
Ghoulies is a lot of fun, it’s a pretty strange film but also a very entertaining one that makes great use of a quirky cast and some fantastic monster effects. The UHD/Blu-ray release from the MVD Rewind Collection presents the movie in a beautiful presentation and on a disc loaded with extra features. Recommended!