Ghouls (2008)

Traveling to Romania with her family, a teen and a hunter come together to stop the leader of a devilish cult that is preparing to sacrifice her in order to free the leader of a race of ghouls plaguing the countryside.This turned out to be quite a decent and somewhat enjoyable effort. One of the better elements within this one is that it really manages to get in some rather fun action that really make for an exciting time. The opening attack on the duo in the forest makes for quite a fine intro for the creatures, a frantic foot-chase through the city streets to stop a horse-drawn carriage that in turn leads into the secondary chase through the streets only the roles are reversed this time as now the chased ones end up doing the chasing that comes off incredibly well. The best, though, is clearly the first encounter in the village which is somewhat creepy by design and has some really enjoyable action segments to get into from all the chasing and running around which helps this one along. Other big action scenes include the capture of the evil spirit in the beginning as well as the finale in the dungeon lair which allows for some more good points in the brutal and bloody kills as well as the make-up for the creatures. As well, the rather decent storyline does have some clever and original makings related to the history of the cult and the connection with the creatures, even though there's a few problems in here. One of the biggest flaws within this one is undoubtedly the reasons why people would willingly follow along with their cult and their purpose knowing the history it shares. The creation of the tribe to worship a race of ghouls intent on taking over is a bit hard to swallow and seems pretty foolish as to why anyone would join such a movement, and that really leaves this one quite frustrating. Likewise, that also counts for the CGI within this which is quite appalling and some of the most annoying work on the channel with the utterly abysmal look to the creatures when they're floating in mid-air. They're essentially off-frame and rarely match their surroundings so it really draws attention to how badly their animated. Even when in flying mode they look plain ridiculous as the blotted images look like black smoky blotches flying around which don't resemble anything remotely closely and is a part of the series' efforts in having atrocious CGI throughout. Otherwise, this one isn't all that bad.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Jennifer (Kristen Renton) has just learned that her grandmother has died in her native country of Romania. Her father, Stefan (William Atherton) and his girlfriend Liz (Erin Gray) take Jennifer to the motherland for the funeral.Meanwhile, Druid Thomas (James DeBello) is chasing ghouls in the town, who have convened for a ceremony in which their queen will enter a vessel (betcha can't guess who THAT is), which will usher in a new world order.Yep, you guessed it, this movie sucked. Not that anyone is surprised by this fact, but I just thought I'd throw it out there. The only saving grace is the acting talents of Kristen Renton and Erin Gray, who are supposed to turn down crappers like this film. I have no clue why they decided to do it, but I guess its good for the viewers because otherwise it would be worse than it was.

At first I was going to change the channel when this movie came on, but it was a SciFi Channel original flick that I hadn't seen before so I gave in to my curiosity.When it comes to SciFi flicks, I always set the "degree of difficulty" score really low. That way whenever the film is halfway decent, I'm always pleasantly surprised. On the whole, this movie was a fine popcorn romp for people who enjoy their horror films with a campy flair and with villains that wield axes with cartoonish exaggeration. Mind, I'm saying that with the utmost of affection. I thought it was funny, however, that after reading that Willy the horse played three different parts I began to look for his appearances as if I were trying to find Hitchcock's appearance in one of his films. And he does, by the way: 1) a workhorse/cart horse in the beginning, 2) a riding horse in the middle, and 3) a carriage horse. Willy is awesome. He deserves a raise.The acting in this film, as in most SciFi films, is not stellar. Most of the characters have pretty flat affect, which disturbed me a great deal. (Willy the horse, on the other hand, had a very emotive tail--even raising it to, well, you know, during a fight scene. The editor or director should be credited for cutting away quickly.) It was interesting that the soap actress had the most realistic emotions of all of the human actors. On the other hand, that isn't saying much.Oh, and the flying angel affect when Jennifer's mother comes back to speak to her? Um. Yeah. I'm sure that somewhere a high school production of Peter Pan wants their equipment back.Still, despite all of its faults, I couldn't hate Ghouls. I may or may not actually tune in when it comes on again, but not because it was the most awful film out of the box (I think that SciFi's pterodactyl and Rock Monster films--not to mention Mansquito and Sssssss! are worse), but simply because I had a hard time caring about what actually happened to the characters. The ending was a little unexpected and kind of fun, considering how many people get their comeuppance. To sum it up, if you don't expect too much of it, you might actually enjoy Ghouls.

Ghouls is so lame and dimwitted, it rivals the very horribleness of Harpies.The story goes absolutely no where. The first hour is the girl running around from the ghouls, shrieking to her heart's content, and a druid who seems to be lost, as he wanders around aimlessly through 2/3rds of the film.The acting is... I think atrocious is too kind. It's damning it's so bad.The special effects are right up there with the original Ghostbusters... and not in a good way. Slimer could beat the crap out of these ghouls in realism.All in all, there's no redeeming quality in Ghouls. It could be summarized into two sentences as to what happens to who, and what the effect is.This is just too dumb to be considered even a guilty pleasure like Harpies. It's unbearable to watch, and with every fiber in my being, please, do not watch this.