Ghoulies III [Ghoulies Go To College] - 1.5/5

By the time Ghoulies III got made (Excuse me, the title card on the film reads Ghoulies Go to College), Charles Band's Empire Pictures had folded and Band was up and running his new company Full Moon Entertainment. Surprisingly the Ghoulies franchise moved on without his involvement. What?! A franchise about killer small creatures and Band has no involvement? I never thought he would let a concept like that get away from him! Still special effects creator and frequent Charles Band collaborator John Carl Buechler takes the reins of this sequel by both directing and doing the effects. Without Band's involvement Buechler is free to take the franchise in a new direction and he does by making it more of a comedy.

This time our three main ghoulies are resurrected by a comic book found hidden in a frat houses bathroom wall. When read aloud by a professor (the great Kevin McCarthy) that recently confiscated the comic book, they rise up from their demonic toilet to cause chaos on a college campus. Now our main character, a prankster who heads the fraternity has to earn the love back of his girl while at the same time clearing his name and stopping the Ghoulies and their new master.

Some fans may be disappointed that the franchise takes a comedic turn but to be honest fellas, the first two entries sucked and were only good for unintentional laughs. Buechler knows this and decides to have fun with the concept. He even makes a toilet, which were predominate on all the promotional posters in the series up till this point, and makes it a integral plot device. That takes talent to do that!

The characters for this type of B-picture are standard but the ghoulies are a little different. First of all the special effects are MUCH better than the first two films. The ghoulies in the original looked like toys that had been left out in the sun too long. Here they look fucking great as Buechler must have put a lot more time and effort into their creation. They also move better and even talk! Yes the ghoulies talk in this film and try to make funny one liners.

Not surprisingly most of the jokes fall flat but I did get a chuckle here and there, especially during a scene when a ghoulie grabs a beer from a fridge only to have a whole mountain of cans fall on them. Some of the humor is also rather slap sticky and cartoony, especially when they kill a women by wrapping her tongue around her neck and also killing a woman by pulling her face with a plunger.

Ghoulies III may get a few chuckles but it is still a pretty lame film but to be honest it's the least lame of a really LAME franchise. This one at least has the decency to know it's got a bad concept and doesn't take itself seriously and it has enough stupid fun for a viewing. For some damn reason this is the only film in the series that doesn't have a DVD release in the United States. Come on Lionsgate! I want to complete my Ghoulies tetralogy on DVD! I was regulated to watching an extremely wore out ex-rental VHS and I want to see my ghoulies digitally mastered!

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Ghoulies III Trailer