Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College

To be honest, I feel like the third part has been my favorite so far. It's precisely in its simple B-movie charm, spiced with humor. The characters are completely irrelevant to me, but it's precisely the humor present in every scene that helps you relax and make it through the whole film. Additionally, the Ghoulies puppets remain quite good, but don't expect anything too scary from them anymore. These are entertaining figures that even speak. (26.03.2015)

Whereas the other brands that Charles Band spewed out into the world during the Empire Pictures era were openly and unofficially further developed following the bankruptcy of his legendary company (specifically Trancers and Robot Jox), Ghoulies set out on a journey through the leading trash production companies of the VHS era. With each instalment, the franchise got a different form that reflected and further developed, but also negated, the preceding canon. Paradoxically, this also leads to the fact that the parts of the series have more or less has similar average ratings, but instead of a universal consensus as in the case of most other series, we rather see conflicting preferences of fans. Some prefer the first instalment with its emphasis on witchcraft and visual effects, while others like the second one with its obvious attempt to create a caustically funny and bloody variation on Gremlins. After the collapse of Empire Pictures, the series was picked up by Vestron Pictures, or rather its primarily video-oriented division Lightning Pictures. In the interest of continuity, directing was entrusted to the resident special-effects whizz John Buechler, but at the same time, the third Ghoulies was pushed significantly in the direction of the more universally accessible teen comedies of the day. In the interest of overall stylisation, the demonic imps speak for the first time and when it comes to certain exterminations, they have an admittedly comic-book, almost slapstick stylisation. Combining the malevolent and mischievous imps with frat-house humour and the adolescent shallowness of Canadian jokes helps this bizarre but unsurprising mix to overcome its own limitations and extract maximum entertainment out of the functional symbiosis – i.e. it’s still within the boundaries of juvenile humour that adores lousy acting, cheap beer and boastful privileged exuberance. Its grim and egocentric essence is unintentionally made more obvious by the fact that the main protagonist looks like a young Donald Trump. (28.03.2021)