Retrospective Film Review

Ghoulies (1985) • 35 Years Later

A young man and his girlfriend move into an old mansion home, where he becomes possessed by a desire to control ancient demons.

When one thinks ‘king of the monsters’, one thinks big. Godzilla. King Kong. But smaller monsters have also left big imprints on cinema. Joe Dante mixed the lovable with the horrifying in his classic Gremlins (1984), and Stephen Herek’s Critters (1986) spawned many sequels. But those two movies were being made alongside a third little monster film that often gets overlooked: Ghoulies.

Independent film director and producer Charles Band was heading up Empire Pictures, working with SFX legend Stan Winston on Parasite (1982), but was eager to use his talents to make a proposed creature feature entitled Beasties. Due to presumed wrestling between productions and debts, Band passed on directing duties to Parasite actor Luca Bercovici who, with co-writer Jeffery Levy, pitched a one-location horror that would suit his Beasties idea.