Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College

Mixing comedy and horror is not an easy task, it’s a delicate balancing act that requires a fundamental understanding of what makes each one work on their own and how to shift from one to the other. There are countless movies that have attempted to combine horror and comedy only to wind up failing on both fronts, Ghoulies III is one of those movies. The humor is, at best, at the Troma level with only the most obvious jokes being delivered at the most obvious times. Most of the jokes come from the Ghoulies themselves, since they’ve been given the gift of speech in this installment of the franchise. When they first started to speak I thought, “Oh, they’re kind of referencing the Three Stooges here.” Then the slapstick came into play and I realized, “Oh, they’re just ripping off the Three Stooges here.” If you’ve ever seen Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds or UHF, you’ve pretty much already seen all of the best parts of this movie.

Rating: 42%

(Image from imdb.com)

Ghoulies II

Ghoulies II is not a very good movie. It is, however, better than the first Ghoulies movie. The puppet demons look a lot better this time around and they're aided by some passable stop motion animation. Black magic is only a minor part of the movie, leaving room for a great deal more Gremlins style puppety mayhem. Once again there are no Ghoulies wearing suspenders featured in the film, but at least they had the decency to reflect that in the poster art.

Rating: 46%

(Image from impawards.com)

Ghoulies

The best part of Ghoulies would have to be the poster art. If you haven't seen the movie, you might think it was a creature feature à la Gremlins. It's actually a very boring movie about a guy who inherits a creepy old house and gets really into black magic. Sure, there are some gloppy puppet creatures roaming about but they're pretty lame. Also, none of them wear suspenders in the movie.

Rating: 38%

(Image from impawards.com)

The Gingerdead Man

Going into The Gingerdead Man I knew that it was directed by Charles Band and released through his company Full Moon Features. So I was ready for a bad movie, one that probably wouldn't even be a "fun" bad movie. I was prepared to be underwhelmed and in that regard I was not disappointed. The movie's running time, minus credits, is 57 minutes. Gary Busey is on screen for approximately three of those minutes. Busey is also credited as the voice of the Gingerdead Man but I'm not entirely convinced he recorded all of the puppet's lines. I think they were going for Child's Play in a bakery but it's closer to something that might have been on a 90's horror anthology series like Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark? I do not recommend watching The Gingerdead Man. I briefly considered giving up horror movies for a while after watching it. I have since recovered.

Rating: 13%

(Image from bmovieshelf.blogspot.ca)

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a young girl accidentally drowns her father with her burgeoning psychic powers. Years later, she returns to the lake where it all happened (you can guess which lake I'm talking about) with her mother and her creepy therapist. The girl with psychic powers, now a young lady, accidentally revives an axe wielding maniac who had been lying dormant at the bottom of the lake. Said maniac decides to butcher a cabin full of horny teens who happened to be gathered nearby for a birthday party, thus leading to an epic showdown of psycho vs psychic.

Rating: Bashed against a tree in a sleeping bag%

(Image from horrordvds.com)