Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College

Dir: John Carl Buechler

1991

***

There are three things about the third instalment of the Ghoulies franchise that I admit I have a soft spot for. Firstly, it was made in 1991. Films of its ilk had had their day in the mid-eighties. I missed them, as awful as many of them were, so this felt like a last hurrah in many respects. Secondly, the film takes itself far less seriously than the first two films. Ghoulies was much more about the occult than the poster led the public to believe and the second one tried far too hard to be an 80's Spielbergian adventure film. Thirdly, the writers realized that the previous films didn't work as well as they resisted what the audience expected. The cinema-going public wanted to see the Ghoulies coming out of the toilet. However, Ghoulies III goes further. Not only do the Ghoulies come out of the most elaborate toilet you've ever seen, they also talk! The third film of every horror franchise is incorrectly regarded as the worst and I couldn't disagree more with the statement. The great Kevin McCarthy, who plays a college lecturer, summons the Ghoulies accidentally after reading a confiscated comic-book aloud. It is never made clear why the satanic spells are in the comic in the first place but these little details are not important and anyway, 80's horror logic states that comic books are all bad and most 80's parents and newspapers would agree anyway. Ghoulies Go to College is what it says it is, The Ghoulies go to college and kill students for no real reason, other than because this is exactly the sort of film college kids watch late at night after they've had a few beers too many. Anyway, the story isn't important, the bad acting doesn't matter and the awful directing can be overlooked. The Ghoulies can talk and that is all that matters. Not only do they talk but they are voiced by voice-artist legends Bob Bergen and Patrick Pinney and a person favourite actor Richard Kind. They also wear clothes. After watching the first two film I realized that this is what I had wanted all along. I'm easily pleased, I don't need a plot, intelligent dialogue or special effects, I just needed a cheap and tacky Gremlins rip-off. I hate 'frat-boy' college films but watching annoying youth of yesteryear being killed by talkative slimy puppets will always be my idea of time well spent.