Product Description

GHOULIES GHOULIES 2

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38633 in DVD
• Brand: PELIKAN,LISA
• Released on: 2003-08-26
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 171 minutes

Customer Reviews

They'll get you in the end, and into your DVD player.
An MGM double feature, featuring the first two of four movies in the Ghoulies franchise. Ghoulies involves Johnathan Graves (Peter Liapis), a college student who inherits a family estate. When he finds black magic paraphenalia, he winds up conjruing up the title characters, as well as his long dead dad. Can he stop them? Ghoulies II involoves the operators of Satan's Den, a haunted house for a fair. When the ghoulies hitch a ride by hiding in Satan's Den, they bring big bucks to the fair, until Uncle Ned (Royal Dano) finds out they have killed a couple of the workers. Can he, his nephew Larry, and short actor Sir Nigel Pennywight (Phil Fondacaro) stop them? This also has a scene that delivers on the original's advertising campaign. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bathroom....

Both movies are low budget films by Charles Band, pre-dating Full Moon Pictures. The cats in both films do great jobs for what they are given. The direction is what you would expect for low budget films. Both films are shown in widescreen anamorphic formats, and look like they have been taken fresh from the lab. the sound on both is great sounding Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. They are standard releases from MGM, with only trailers, but the low price warrants purchase for fans of the horror genre or MST3K.

GHOULIES
(1985, PG-13)

Johnathan Graves: Peter Liapis
Rebecca: Lisa Pelikan
Malcom Graves: Michael Des Barres
Wolfgang: Jack Nance
Grizzel: Peter Risch
Greedigut: Tamara De Treaux

Director: Luca Bercovici
Writers: Luca Bercovici, Jefery Levy

MOVIE: 3
VIDEO: 5
AUDIO: 5
EXTRAS: 2
MENUS: 3
OVERALL: 4

GHOULIES II
(1987, PG-13)

Larry: Damon Martin
Uncle Ned: Royal Dano
Sir Nigel Pennywight: Phil Fondacaro
P. Hardin: J. Downing
Nicole: Kerry Remsen
Dixie: Dale Wyatt

Director: Albert Band
Writers: Charlie Dolan, Dennis Paoli

MOVIE: 4
VIDEO: 5
AUDIO: 5
EXTRAS: 2
MENUS: 3
OVERALL: 4
DISC OVERALL: 4

Finally Released on DVD
I give this movie a 5-star rating not because it was scary but because it is one of those cheesy-1980's films that you just have to watch.

To summarize the plot: Evil Satanic Sorcerer fails to sacrifice his own son to Lucifer so kills the mother instead by ripping her heart out and banishing the child. The Sorcerer dies a "horrible death" and somehow the son, Jonathan, learns that he has inherited the house.

Jonathan and his girlfriend, Rebecca, are both still in college. Jonathan drops out for a semester to fix up the house. In truth, he gets really obsessed with the black magick ritual books that he finds and decides to try them out. His eyes turn green, he calls up the ghoulies, a few subservient dwarfs, and even gets Rebecca to come back after she left him because of the black magick rituals.

Jonathan gets power hungry and performs a master ritual which accidentally raises his dad back to life. Incidentally, the evil sorcerer was buried in the yard.

Evil Sorcerer Dad kills all of Jonathan's friends and takes control of the ghoulies.

The Evil Sorcerer vows to take Jonathan's life but then the big twist!

You'll just have to buy this one to see the ending now, right?

Another excellent MGM Double Feature DVD!
MGM has done an admirable job for this new Double Feature DVD. It contains both Ghoulies and Ghoulies 2, both presented in Animorphic Widescreen with their original theatrical trailers. The picture and sound are as good as we're ever going to see these two films on DVD. A great value, even if you only wish to buy it for one of the movies.

GHOULIES was an early release from Charles Band and Empire Pictures, predating the later Full Moon Pictures. The budget was fairly low for the mid-1980's, but it is still an enjoyable late-night film.

GHOULIES 2 was the sequel and probably had a little larger budget. It featured more talented actors (Royal Dano, Phil Fondacaro, Starr Andreeff, Sasha Jenson) and the Ghoulies are a little more animate than in the original movie. On a whole it is better than the original in many ways.

There were two more later sequels (Parts 3 & 4) to the Ghoulies franchise...maybe they will also come to DVD someday soon.