Ghoulies II (1988)

... aka: Duhovi II (Ghosts II)
... aka: Ghoulies 2
... aka: Ghoulies II: Il principe degli scherzi (Ghoulies II: The Prince of Jokes)

Directed by:
Albert Band

Ned Prentice (Royal Dano), formerly a stage magician called "The Great Fausto" but now a washed-up, grumpy old drunk, runs a traveling carnival spook show called Satan's Den. His teenage nephew Larry (Damon Martin) has decided to tag along with him for the summer in hopes of learning the magic / carnival trade and ends up having to both pull all of the weight and keep the showing going. He's helped by dwarf Sir Nigel Penneyweight (Phil Fondacaro), a Shakespearean actor who used to perform at the Old Vic but is now slumming dressing up in monster costumes. Little do they know, but they're about to get some unwanted additional help when they pull their overheating truck into a closed gas station late one night. Prior to their arrival, a priest (Anthony Dawson) being chased by some red-cloaked gnomes ducked into the station and threw a bag full of ghoulie demon puppets into a smoking drum labeled "extremely toxic." However, the corrosive waste didn't even phase the critters and one managed to knock him into the barrel, quickly reducing him to a skeleton. Attracted by the horror art on the side of the Satan's Den truck, the ghoulies decide they've found a new home and quietly sneak on board.

Ned, Larry and Nigel arrive in the small town of Greenville and start setting up with the rest of the acts. Head of accounting Phillip Hardin (J. Downing), whose father owns Hardin Enterprises, shows up to audit all of the company's holdings, which include the carnival. And he's planning on shutting down any act that doesn't show a profit by the time he leaves. That puts added pressure on the old fashioned Satan's Den, which hasn't been performing well for the past 16 months since contemporary kids can get all of the monsters and gory thrills they want at the local cinema. If they're not able to pull it around in a couple of days, Phillip's going to replace them with a ladies mud wrestling tent. However, never underestimate to power of mischievous, murderous little demons to help boost your sales!

After a couple of little boys encounter one of the ghoulies, which spits sticky green goop and chews through a ninja star, word gets around and soon everyone's flocking to Satan's Den to see them. Some customers don't make it to the exit. There's death by razor, pendulum and electrocution, but most of the mild carnage takes place during the big finale when the ghoulies decide to leave the spook show and wreak havoc on the entire carnival. There are some fun bits involving the rides and carnival booths, including bumper cars, the shooting gallery, the dunk tank and ring the bell. One even removes a screw holding a ride together, sending the car two people are riding in flying off. During the finale, a spell book is used to conjure up a "demonic intercessor," which is basically a big man-in-a-suit ghoulie that runs around eating the smaller ones.

Even though they're basically stuck with a bunch of sub-Gremlins gags, the creatures are given more screen time and more to do here, which is an improvement over the original. They also made the smart decision to only feature five of them, each patterned after a regular animal, which helps give each a bit more personality. There's a bat one that flies, a rat one that spits green slime, a cat one that can imitate a cat's meow to lure victims, one that looks like a baby doll crossed with a fish and a squatty one that (I think) is supposed to look like an alligator. They head bang to W.A.S.P. (who even released a tie-in Ghoulies music video for "Scream Until You Like It"), give each other high five's, laugh, belch and do other silly things in between killings. Of course this is all incredibly silly and juvenile, but creating something that would appeal to young teens was, I think, obviously the whole point here.

Filmed at Empire Studios in Rome, this utilized a mostly Italian crew and mostly Italian actors serving as extras and filling some of the smaller parts, including former spaghetti western regular Romano Puppo as the strongman. The DOP was Sergio Salvati, veteran of many Lucio Fulci films. John Carl Buechler was again in charge of the creature design and, though he sticks closely to the designs of the first film, they're given a bit more mobility this time out, which is helped even further by a few stop motion animations courtesy of David Allen. Charles Band was the executive producer and Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator) wrote the script.

The cast is littered with familiar faces from 80s horror, including a wasted Starr Andreeff (Dance of the Damned), William Butler (Friday the 13th Part VII) and Sasha Jenson (Halloween 4) as some of the obnoxious teens, Kerry Remsen (Pumpkinhead) as the harem dancer love interest, Donnie Jeffcoat as a cynical, foul-mouthed little kid (so basically the same role he had in NIGHT OF THE DEMONS), fx man Michael Deak as a clown who gets his arm torn off, Dale Wyatt as a dancer, Donald Hodson and Mickey Knox.

While this was given a limited theatrical release, it did most of its business on home video and cable. A tiny bit of gore was removed to secure a PG-13 rating, which not only helped get this regular play on cable, but also made it perfect filler for premium movie channels that were always desperate for PG and PG-13 films they could run before 8pm. This one fit the bill so it was on TV all the time back in the day. There have been multiple DVD releases, plus a 2015 Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory, which comes with the 17 minute documentary short Ghoulies II: More Toilets, More Terror.

★★

Messiah of Evil (1973)

... aka: Dead People
... aka: Messiah of Evil: The Second Coming
... aka: Return of the Living Dead
... aka: Revenge of the Screaming Dead, The
... aka: Second Coming, The

Directed by:
Willard Huyck
Gloria Katz (uncredited)

After the death of her mother, Arletty (gorgeous Marianna Hill) and her reclusive painter father Joseph (Royal Dano) have become estranged, keeping in contact only via letter. The letters have become increasingly more bizarre as time has gone by, so Arletty travels to the small coastal town of Point Dune to check in on him. At a gas station right outside of town, she bumps into a frantic attendant (Charles Dierkop) shooting at strange noises coming from the darkness and a tall, creepy albino (Bennie Robinson) with corpses hidden under a tarp on his truck bed. Immediately after she leave, the attendant is murdered. Her father isn't home when she arrives, so the next day she heads into town to track him down. No one is very cooperative and the townsfolk just stare and back away when asked questions. The local art gallery owner is a little more helpful and points her in the direction of a hotel where some other people who are also looking for her father are staying. She arrives there right as Thom (Michael Greer), a "collector of old legends," is recording an interview with town drunk Charlie (Elisha Cook Jr.), who babbles incoherently about the "Blood Moon" and children eating raw meat. Outside, Charlie tells Arletty she must kill her father and burn his body. She just figures he's crazy.

Soon after relaying the information, the drunk is murdered (and partially eaten), so Thom and his two female traveling companions; exotic model Laura (Anitra Ford) and "half-wit" blonde Toni (Joy Bang), are kicked out of the hotel and come to stay with Arletty. Thom doesn't hide his attraction for his hostess and, jealous, Laura takes off and decides to hitchhike her way to San Francisco. She doesn't make it very far. After an encounter with the albino (who eats a live sea rat right in front of her), she follows a man into a grocery store and runs into a rabid group of townsfolk feasting on raw meat. She becomes the next item on their menu. Lots of other downright bizarre things happen. Someone keeps sneaking into the beach house late at night, Thom sees people gathering on the beach by a bonfire, people's eyes bleed, they stop feeling pain and puke up beetles, maggots and lizards and cops try to pass off the corpse of some other man for Arletty's father to get her to leave. And that's just the tip of the iceberg!

Arletty finds her father's journal, which sheds light on his deteriorating mental state, as well as the history of the town and how the "Dark Stranger" arrived there a century earlier, leading to all kinds of monstrous acts in Point Dune back when it was called New Bethlehem. Apparently The Stranger, possibly the son of Satan himself, was a survivor of the Donner Party and had his first taste of human flesh there. After the denizens of the area became infected with the desire to cannibalize and kill, The Stranger disappeared into the sea, promising to return 100 years later to a world tired and disillusioned. And then he'd oversea the destruction and death of the entire town once again. The story is told from our heroine's point-of-view, as she recounts her tale from a nuthouse ("They're waiting for you and they'll take you one by one and no one will hear you scream!"), and utilizes narration from multiple characters (Hill and Dano's).

A unique, unpredictable spin on both living dead and possession themes, this is muddled and clumsy at times, but it's rather fascinating all the same. The material is very stylistically and artistically done; almost recalling Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977) at times; particularly in the blue and red lighting and the interiors of the beach house, which have plants, an escalator and leering people painted directly onto the walls. There are also some very well done (and creepy) set pieces that really deliver. The gas station scene, the supermarket scene, a scene with 'dead people' peering in through a skylight and one where Arletty is finally reunited with her father being just a few. The real stand out sequence - obviously inspired by the jungle gym scene in THE BIRDS (1963) - has Bang's character going to a showing of "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" and having the theater slowly start to fill up with flesh-hungry townspeople, who file into the theater one by one and start sitting right behind her.

Filmed in 1971 as The Second Coming, this was taken from the directors for one reason or another before completion and was re-edited. Because of that, it's saddled with a rather poor cop out of an ending. A new theme song as well as clips from the failed Sammy Davis Jr. western-comedy GONE WITH THE WEST - also rumored to have been unfinished - were added somewhere along the line and the resulting film was finally released to theaters in 1975 under the title Messiah of Evil. In 1978, it was very briefly reissued as Return of the Living Dead, but because of a potential lawsuit both the title and tagline (which ripped off DAWN OF THE DEAD) had to be changed. It then became Revenge of the Screaming Dead. In 1982, the film was reissued theatrically a third and final time under the title Dead People, which prominently used the creepy albino character in the ad art.

Husband / wife writer team Huyck and Katz went on to write hits for George Lucas (AMERICAN GRAFFITI) and Steven Spielberg (INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM). They also made HOWARD THE DUCK (1986), but this one's good enough to help us forgive 'em for that. A young Walter Hill (now a big name Hollywood writer / director / producer) is in the opening sequence getting his throat cut by a little girl and director B.W.L. Norton (who went on to make the popular TV movie GARGOYLES) also has a small role.

Nice try.

Messiah hasn't had the same fate as most other readily-available public domain titles out there. It was actually remastered and restored by Code Red, who issued a DVD a few years back with lots of extras. As you can probably tell from my screen shots, I didn't watch their release., but I'm definitely interested in picking it up now. You hear me Santa?

★★★