Back to the 80s - Ghoulies! #MonsterMondays 37

Hello and welcome to my blog, I'm sorry my post is late today, but it's a bank holiday here in the UK and so we had something of a lie in this morning. I hope you are all well.

Back to the 80s - Ghoulies!

Back in the 80s there was no CGI, but there were still some great monsters. Some of my favourites from the time is Ghoulies. The monsters are all people dressed up or models and they have their own charm.

Jonathan from The Ghouli

For those who have never seen Ghoulies, the plot is a simple one: Jonathan Graves [Peter Liapis] (the names were never subtle in these films :)) inherits a house and he and his girlfriend Rebecca [Lisa Pelikan] move in to start doing it up. Jonathan finds a book on magic and the ritual vestments and room left behind by his father Malcolm (Michael Des Barres), which he starts to use. He finds the creatures left behind in the grounds, the Ghoulies. Unfortunately, as he becomes addicted to magic, he also manages to raise his father from the dead. When he has a dinner party with his friends, bad things start to happen.

In the first film at least, the little monsters are kind of cute really, in that E.T. way - although these have way more teeth. When they are under Jonathan's control they looks nasty, but they aren't, however, under Malcolm's control they are horrible little whatsits. Hence we basically find that the only real monster in the movie is Malcolm himself.

Michael des Barres as Malcolm

As you can see in the picture he's a little bit undead, but by draining power from other people he almost gets over it.

Once again the real monster is not the beasts, but the human who uses them for his own ends. I mean you wouldn't want to sit down to dinner with the little critters, but they aren't all terrible.

There is only one that I would say is bad to the bone though, but that's probably my prejudice showing:

You're never going to convince me that a clown, especially one that bleed from the eyes is not totally evil.

Ghoulies manages to do what many 80s movies were incredibly good at - it mixes horror and comedy perfectly. Parts are truly horrific (points to the clown), but other sections are actually very funny.

If you want a light hearted horror film with little monsters and Michael Des Barres chewing the scenery, as he does so well, then this is the film for you. It's kind of silly, but highly entertaining.

Have you seen Ghoulies? How about any other movies from the 80s that use similar effects like Troll? Do you have a favourite 80s horror classic? Are all clowns evil?