Malcolm Graves (Michael Des Barres) was the leader of a satanic cult. During one of his black masses, he plans on sacrificing his infant son. The child is saved by the baby’s mother, Anastasia (Victoria Catlin), and Wolfgang (Jack Nance), one of the participants of the mass. Malcolm becomes enraged and instead, kills Anastasia.
Twenty-five years later the infant, Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis) is now an adult and has inherited his father’s estate. Jonathan and his girlfriend, Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan) move into the mansion and have a party. They invite their friends, Mike (Scott Thomson), Mark (Ralph Seymour), Donna (Mariska Hargitay), Dick (Keith Joe Dick), Robin (Charene Cathleen) and Eddie (David Dayan).
While inspecting the house, Jonathan finds all of Malcolm’s occult books as well as the basement alter that he used for his masses. During the party, thinking it would be fun; Jonathan performs a ritual using his father’s robes and accoutrements. It doesn’t take long for everyone to get bored with the mumbo jumbo and annoyed with Jonathan. This doesn’t stop Jonathan from working on the ritual by himself. He ends up calling forth several demonic creatures as well as two small servant dwarves, Grizzel (Peter Risch) and Greedigut (Tamara De Treaux).
The dwarves tell Jonathan that in order to have all the power he desires he must perform a satanic ritual. Using the power he already has, Jonathan hypnotizes Rebecca into assisting him in the ritual. He then invites his friends to have another party and spend the night at the mansion. Jonathan performs his ritual. This results in Malcolm being resurrected from the dead. Malcolm decides that there is room for only one master, him.
“Ghoulies” was released in 1985 and was directed by Luca Bercovici. It is an American horror film. The film spawned three sequels.
The film was originally supposed to be in 3D. Patrons were supposed to put their 3D glasses on when characters in the film were seen wearing sunglasses. This would alert them that the film would be changing from 2D to 3D. Shortly after filming began, the approach was abandoned, and the entire film was done in 2D. This resulted in some strange sequences where people in the movie would randomly don sunglasses.
The picture of the Ghoulie popping out of the toilet was part of a promotional campaign for the film’s movie poster. It was so widely loved that the filmmakers had to actually create the scene for the movie. It also had a negative effect when mothers wrote scathing letters to the studio saying that their children, after seeing the poster, were afraid to go to the bathroom.
This is one of a bunch of movies done in the eighties that feature small evil creatures, such as “Critters” 1986, “Gremlins” 1984, “Munchies” 1987, etc. Like most of them, it is campy and a bit silly at times. The plot is standard and the acting, for the most part, is average to slightly below average. Just like everything else, the movie itself is average.
A "Ghoulie" is a malevolent goblin or evil entity. It means "small monster" in Persian.