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With Halloween just around the corner, it’s time to seek out some entertaining horror flicks. This can be a daunting task, since there’s so much out there—from truly entertaining films to complete trash, and a lot in between. A film that falls into the second category—and one that you’ll definitely want to avoid—is the newly released DVD, Ghouls.
You’ll know what you’re in for right from the beginning of the movie. It opens with what looks like a cult ceremony of devil worship and human sacrifice. The scene abruptly changes as we meet Jennifer (Kristen Renton), an American college student who’s interrupted from her jog by her father (William Atherton). He informs her that her grandmother has died, and he’d like her to accompany him to the funeral. Jennifer has never met her grandmother—or anyone else from her father’s family, for that matter—so the two, along with Dad’s girlfriend, Liz (Erin Gray), make the journey to Pelisoara, Romania.
When the three get into town, Uncle Vlad (Dan Badarau) picks them up in his horse and wagon. As they ride though the village, the inhabitants run inside their homes and shut their windows. When they arrive at the family inn, everyone just stares at Jennifer. It doesn’t take long for viewers to figure out that they have plans for her.
Though Jennifer doesn’t know what’s going on, we viewers have the advantage (or not) of witnessing two caped men shooting rifles and hurling grenades into the trees in an attempt to destroy menacing black smoke that’s racing through the air. We then learn that this isn’t really smoke, but ghouls who appear on Earth as flesh-eating zombie-like creatures. These beings were banished into the spirit world, somewhere between the living and the dead—but, every 1500 years, they seek reclamation to come back onto Earth to live again.
Jennifer learns about the ghouls from a handsome American, Thomas (James De Bello), who’s been fighting them. He also warns Jennifer about her potential role in all of this.
Ghouls consists of a trite plot, interspersed with cheesy dialogue and bad acting. Actually, it may not be that the actors are inept; they just don’t seem to take their roles seriously. And, considering the script they were given, I don’t blame them. It seems that elements of classic horror movies were thrown together with no thought—from the typical Eastern European setting, only with Americans added into the mix, to the ancient cult to the flesh-eating creatures. And the special effects, like the black smoke dashing though the air, look amateurish.
The remarkable thing about the film is that I wasn’t even fazed by the hungry ghouls munching on the human bodies or by watching a heart literally being ripped out of someone’s chest because the tedious story overshadowed the graphic gore.
Some movies are so awful that they’re funny. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them. By watching Ghouls, I ended up subjecting myself to 88 minutes of pure boredom.
