SnoopyStyle
A man tries to destroy a ghoulie in a drum of solvents at a gas station and is killed. Larry and Uncle Ned stop the Satan's Den truck at the gas station and several ghoulies sneak on. They arrive at the Hardin Family Carnival. Business man Phillip Hardin audits his late father's money-losing amusement park threatening to close it down. He gives them one week to turn their fortune around. He tells Sir Nigel Penneyweight that he's turning Satan's Den into a mud wrestling show. Larry and Uncle Ned set up Satan's Den. The ghoulies start their killings and become part of the attraction.This is slightly better than the original. The most important reason being that any cheesiness is excused by being a carnival setting. It makes everything including the ghoulies more reasonable. The carnival is supposed to be cheesy. This one is also more fun. It's less amateurish in both the scale and the acting. This is simply better.
Foreverisacastironmess
I used to watch this tons as a kid, and for me it's this and Puppet Master 2 that tie as my favourite 'killer little creatures' flicks. It's still hugely enjoyable and charming to me and I love it a whole lot to this day. It doesn't take itself too seriously, the deaths range from ridiculous to downright chilling, it's scary and funny when it's trying to be, and even poignant once or twice. I love the music score which somehow brings a little added depth all on its own, surprising that it wasn't done by Richard Band. I enjoy all the classic grotesquerie of a good old-fashioned spookhouse that's rendered deadly for real in some way, that's always a very welcome theme to me. And when the little terrors finally do escape into the carnival at large and briefly cause some real havoc it's just the grisly icing on the cake! When the tilt-a-whirl goes flying off its axis into fiery destruction, that's such a childhood amusement park nightmare come to life! Some of the characters are interesting enough, I like the little drama of alcoholic old Uncle Ned, very well played by the late Royal Dano as a burned-out old fool who mistakingly believes to his cost that it was he who summoned up the Ghoulies. And I absolutely love Phil Fondacaro, it may be an old line, but he had such a big presence for such a small person, and he more than held his own despite putting up with indignities like being picked up and made to wear a stupid gorilla costume. And while I'm sure a lot of films like this back in the day arguably took their basic elements of the idea from Gremlins, so what? I think as far as this sequel goes at least, the Ghoulies are way more frightening than the Gremlins, their particular brand of hijinx are downright vicious! All I'm saying is, if you're gonna take your inspiration from somewhere, at least take it from somewhere worthwhile, and I think there's more than enough different stuff in this movie for it to respectfully distance itself and be much more than just a worthless copy. This does get such an undue amount of criticism dumped on it, it is far from ideal but it's no flaming garbage can like Troll 2 either - good bad picture though that is! And I personally don't think the creature models are bad either. The faces of at least two of them are amazingly expressive. I have a theory that at least some of the people that hate this movie have only ever seen the inferior MGM DVD cut, which until very recently, had been the only version widely available, so I decided to include this list of everything that's included on the UK VHS.. 1: The scene of Patty's death is a bit of a complicated one as both the VHS and DVD have seconds that the other doesn't, but they always leave out when she has a bite taken out of her face and when the cat Ghoulie slashes her. 2: Now this is an odd one. Apparently at the time in Britain, all film scenes involving ninja paraphernalia no matter how mild, had to be removed completely by the thrice-cursed BBFC!! Thus, although it's present on the DVD, Ghoulies 2's rather strange shuriken scene is sadly absent from the VHS cut. 3: During Merle's death it shows slightly more of the buildup to his pendulum slicing, but it still omits the juiciest part. I love the character of Merle because it was like the adorable William Butler purposefully played the guy to be a lot more campy and goofy than everyone else in the movie! Everything about him just screams out monsters, get me and kill me slowly and horribly! 4: When Ned gets electrocuted it shows him fall to the ground and there's a closeup of the pentagram that he scrawled out in his own blood. 5: In the largest scene to be cut out, Kerry Remsen's character gives this really long- winded and embarrassingly melodramatic speech about how her brother died in a high-wire act. I guess it explains how she so deftly climbs the big wheel at the end, but it adds nothing and is a terrible scene all around. 6: In the DVD when the poor clown falls into the dunk tank and has his arm bitten off it cuts to this really s****y model of the aquatic Ghoulie that looks completely out of place, but in the true version it shows the little devil with its mouth full of blood and the mangled arm close by - damn scary scene! 7: And finally when P.Hardin takes his faithful trip to the can, before it cuts to his echoing scream, we get to hear a few more choice ripping sounds as the last remaining Ghoulie chomps down on god knows what! Those cuts are mostly mere seconds long, but the absence of the much needed bloodshed really does take the edge off and makes the movie a lot more weaker than it was originally meant to be. Regardless, to me this was always a very "Magic moon" indeed. Cheers. To Merle! x
Michael_Elliott
GHOULIES II (1988) ** (out of 4) The circus attraction Satan's Den is given notice that if their latest stop doesn't make money then their doors are going to be closed. Uncle Ned (Royal Dano) and his nephew Larry (Damon Martin) gotta kind a new attraction to liven things up and they find it in some ghoulies that found their way in. Soon they both realize that these disgusting creatures aren't worth the extra money.GHOULIES II is actually an improvement over the original film but then again that's really not saying too much considering the original was pretty bad and a poor mile behind films like GREMLINS and CRITTERS. This sequel has a few funny things in it and the special effects by John Carl Buechler are much better and they're the saving grace. This sequel also manages to have a fairly fun setting and when you put all of this together you've got a mildly entertaining film.I think the best thing this film has going for it are the special effects. I thought all of the ghoulie effects were quite good and certainly miles better than what was seen in the previous film as well as other low-budget movies like this. I thought the creatures looked very realistic and I liked how much personality each of them had. There are some gore effects as well but the majority of them were cut so that the film could get a PG-13 rating and be more "kid friendly," although the recent Blu-ray release has the uncut footage. It's strange that they'd aim this film at kids yet the "F" word is said three times.Another thing I liked was the circus setting, which added some fun to the movie. With that said, there's still nothing ground-breaking here. There's some pretty bad performances scattered throughout and I'd question the film running 89-minutes as that's about ten minutes too long. Another problem is that there are some pretty slow moments throughout the first hour but things really pick up during the final third when the ghoulies break free and cause havoc.
Critters1986
I've got to say this is way better then the first one. The Ghoulies actually kill people and cause mayhem. And instead of the Ghoulies goofing around they kill people, good for ghoulies 2. Anyway Ghoulies 2 is about two people who are driving a truck called 'Satan's den' as the Ghoulies get stowed away. Later the Ghoulies turn up at a carnival place as they start killing people in Satan's den. Soon a guy summons a giant ghoulie to kill all the other Ghoulies. In the end there was one Ghoulie left as Ghoulies 3 come three years later. I think this movie is pretty good because its better then the first, they thought through this movie really well and they kill people. So I give Ghoulies 2 ***out of *****
