Ghoulies IV

Dir: Jim Wynorski

1994

*

It is fair to say that none of the Ghoulies films are masterpieces of horror. However, at least you can say of the first three films that they actually have Ghoulies in them. The first film took itself far too seriously as an occult horror. The second was fun but tried a little too hard to be a Spielbergian adventure, while the third film put the fun back into the franchise by taking itself a little less seriously and is probably the most watchable because of it. Ghoulies IV is something else entirely. The character Jonathan Graves (played by a returning Peter Liapis) from the first Ghoulies film is now a police detective, having given up his stint within the satanic priesthood. The film starts off as a very low budget TV police drama, with one-liners and cheesy glances and you wonder what the hell is going on. The film carries on in this vein for some time, I'm sure I wasn't the only person to have picked up the video box after fifteen minutes to check that I had rented the correct film. Soon enough though, a portal is opened and the occult stuff begins to happen. This is where the film really lost me. I quite liked it when it was a terrible cop drama, the horror element ruined it somewhat and the 'Ghoulies' that were eventually released were nothing at all like the Ghoulies of the previous films. Instead, Tony Cox and Arturo Gil emerge in rags and badly fitting masks. They talk to the camera and generally get in the way of the story. They serve no purpose whatsoever, almost like the film makers wanted to make a totally different film but knew that they had to insert some 'Ghoulies' somewhere but they didn't necessarily have to be the same that had been in the previous films. The excuse was that Cinetel Films couldn't afford the puppets of the previous films, which I can sort of believe, but to me that suggests that this is a production aimed at making a past buck and nothing more. There is no passion here, it was made with a complete disregard to the fans, as many films at the end of a horror franchise were. How these production companies thought they could succeed is beyond me, I had no sympathy when they all shut down, good riddance. I like a bad horror movie more than most people but Ghoulies IV is fraud in many respects and deserves nothing but contempt. It makes other bad horror films look bad (or should that be good?).