This time, you better flush twice!
Moon’s fuller than usual tonight, says the old alcoholic uncle Ned, as he and his nephew Larry are driving the big Satan’s Den truck to a carnival. The same night, we also see a man running through the woods from a group of Satanic cult members with three ghoulies trapped in a sack bag. He hides in an empty gas station where he dumps the ghoulies in a gallon of toxic waste. The man falls down into the waste himself when he suddenly gets attacked by a bat ghoulie. Not only one or two, but FOUR ghoulies rise from the toxic waste, just because, to make sure that we’ll have a fun, cheesy and entertaining sequel for the whole family. And the kids should know by now that there are no monsters in the toilet, unless you happen to live in Australia. We also get introduced to a new type of ghoulie here, the Toad Ghoulie. Uncle Ned and Larry stop by the station where the little rascals hide in the truck, and something wicked this way comes to a carnival not so far away.
The carnival is an economic crisis, and all the attractions that don’t make any profit during the upcoming weekend will be closed down. And all of us ghouls can agree that a carnival without a haunted house is not a carnival. And if The Satan’s Den goes, it will be replaced with a ladies’ mud wrestling tent. Meh. The young and smug businessman, Philip Hardin, who owns the carnival with his company and thinks he’s Tom Cruise from Risky Business, will make sure of that. The trio who runs the haunted house, Uncle Ned, Larry and the littleman Sir Nigel, has a lot of work to do. Well, that goes for Larry and Nigel, as Uncle Ned is drunk all the time and believes everything will be solved by magic. Try black magic instead. Oops, someone already did. And that leads us to the ghoulies who are hiding somewhere in the Den, waiting eagerly for the audience to show up so they can have some kill counts.
Ghoulies II is this time directed by Albert Band, the dad of Charles and composer Richard, and this is probably the most polished film in the franchise. There’s also a couple of known faces here like veteran Royal Dano as drunk Ned, and Phil Fondacaro as Nigel, who looks like a shrunken Frank Miller in his older years. Even though the acting here is better than the first one, the rest of the cast are NPC’s, and the romance sideplots are just dead meat to flush down the toilet for the sewer rats. The good news is that the ghoulies themselves have far more screentime here both in form of puppetry and stop-motion by David Allen. The tone is also way more consistent with its blend of comedy and light-hearted silly horror where the carnival-setting amps up the fun-factor and some extra cozy/charming nostalgic atmosphere.
The film also works fine as an isolated watch as it has no connections with the first. The same can be said about Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College. And that one is actually what it sounds like: the ghoulies gets drunk on a college campus, filled with cringe humor and as little horror elements as possible where the only one missing is Pauly Shore. Haven’t seen the fourth one yet.
Director: Albert Band
Writers: Danny Bilson, Dennis Paoli
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Damon Martin, Royal Dano, Phil Fondacaro, J. Downing, Kerry Remsen, Dale Wyatt, Jon Pennell, Sasha Jenson, Starr Andreeff, William Butler, Donnie Jeffcoat, Christopher Burton
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093091/
