Ghoulies II - A vast improvement on the original

You normally think of cinematic greats such as the Godfather 2, Terminator 2, Empire Strikes Back and Aliens as ‘superior’ sequels.  Not many people ever mention the eighties horror ‘Ghoulies 2’ in the same breath as any of the affore-mentioned films.  However, it is head and shoulders about its predecessor.  Although, that’s not saying much.

The original was about a wannabe sorcerer who conjured up a load of evil little critters, aka, ‘ghoulies’ only to have them turn on him.  Sadly, the first film centred on the – pretty bland – humans, whereas the real stars of the show were the nasty little puppets who terrorised people.  I’m guessing this was more to do with budget constraints, but, this time round, they seem to have learned from their mistakes.  The ghoulies are the stars.

They’re in it pretty much all the way through.  Yes, the human characters are still pretty bland, but at least you don’t really notice when the monsters get going.  You could naturally pick faults in the film by saying how the ghoulies are about two feet tall and would probably find it difficult to actually hurt someone (let alone savage them to death), but we’ll just skip that one and assume they are capable of killing tonnes of people.

It’s hardly scary.  There’s not an awful lot of tension of scares in it (unless you’re that afraid of rubbery-looking monsters) and you have to majorly suspend your disbelief to imagine that creatures can walk around a packed fairground and not be seen until it suits the script’s needs.  But, if you like cheesy eighties horror/monster movies, then give this one a go (and ignore the sequels – the series truly peaks here – and that’s saying something!).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that