Editorials
They’ll Get You In The End: Ranking the ‘Ghoulies’ Films
#2 – Ghoulies II (1988)
This is the one that everyone seems to love most and it is not hard to see why. A low budget Gremlins riff, Ghoulies II is goofy fun from start to finish. The first to bring the titular beasties into the limelight as the central focus, the majority of this outing has the little demonic creatures mucking about a haunted house attraction at a rundown traveling carnival.
Penned by Stuart Gordon’s long-time writing partner, Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator, From Beyond), the script for this one has a bit more polish to it than those that followed. Keeping the genre pedigree going, we’re also granted turns from recognizable actors such as Phil Fondacaro (Willow, Troll), Sasha Jenson (Halloween 4, Dazed and Confused), and Royal Dano (The Dark Half, Killer Klowns From Outer Space). In particular, Fondacaro and Dano both do a hefty amount of scenery-chewing.
Given that it sticks to a single location for most of its running time, Ghoulies II is able to focus the majority of its budget on its special effects. Always a good move, it clearly allowed John Carl Buechler to go hog wild with the little critters and the death carnage that they wreck upon carnies and customers alike. There’s even a giant rampaging ghoulie at the end!
I’ve always found this one to drag a little at times, which is why it comes in second place for me. All in all, it’s a fun film. It’s a shame that Charles Band didn’t hold onto the rights after this entry. I’m sure we’d be on Ghoulies XV by now if he had, but we probably would have actually gotten a few more good installments after this one.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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