Editorials
Celebrating ‘Ghoulies’ and Its Surprising Queerness at 35
Low budget creature feature Ghoulies is many things to many people: a crass and brazen rip-off of Gremlins, a second-tier franchise from prolific schlock producer/director Charles Band, and a mid-80s guilty pleasure that brings to mind popular children’s toy Boglins.
Revisiting the film for its 35th anniversary, Ghoulies is all of this and so much more. As Meagan discussed in her It Came From The 80s column, this is a franchise that lured prospective horror audiences in with its ridiculous cover art of a little green monster, dripping ooze, as it pops out of a toilet (the image was not even originally in the film and was added following reshoots). What audiences may not remember is that the goopy puppets barely even appear in the film, and they’re not even the main antagonists!
Ghoulies is actually about a cult headed by Malcolm Graves (Michael Des Barres), who opens the film attempting to sacrifice his son during a satanic ritual. When its mother protects it with a magical amulet, the child is saved and both parents die. 21 years later, the boy – Jonathan (Peter Liapis, aged 35 at the time of filming) – inherits the family’s palatial estate and slowly succumbs to his late father’s demonic influence. Much of the film focuses on Jonathan’s disintegrating relationship with girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan), whom he ultimately resorts to controlling using his newfound powers. The entire last act is dedicated to an out of control dinner party wherein Jonathan and Rebecca’s friends are slaughtered by the Ghoulies in order to resurrect Malcolm, who is revealed to be the mastermind behind Jonathan’s obsession.
In many ways, Ghoulies is an unsuccessful film. The script from Jefery Levy, co-written by director Luca Bercovici, is filled with unusual narrative choices: voice over from Jonathan’s secret guardian Wolfgang (Jack Nance) that only appears at the beginning and end of the film, random appearances from bickering dwarves in medieval armour, and the early introduction of a half dozen of Jonathan and Rebecca’s friends before they are sidelined for 2/3 of the runtime.
Despite all of these issues, the film is eminently watchable. The creature design of the ghoulies – most of which have their own distinct visual aesthetic – is equal parts cute and gross. Accusations of stealing from Gremlins are unwarranted since the two films were in production at the same time (Ghoulies’ exhibition was delayed due to Band’s financial issues, which allowed the Joe Dante film to be released first). The reality is that Ghoulies is much more liberally stealing from 1982’s Poltergeist with its killer clown sequence.
What makes the film fascinating is its prescient underlying elements. Yes, the film is a lowbrow riff on escalating fears of satanism in the 80s, but it also features a significant amount of relationship abuse and, surprisingly enough, a healthy dose of not-so-subtle queerness.
The whole film is secretly predicated upon Malcolm gaslighting his son, Jonathan. Initially the College student is presented as a decent guy with an affection for his girlfriend and friends, but over the course of the film he becomes increasingly worse as he is corrupted by his father’s spell book. Rebecca gets the worst of it: initially Jonathan forgets her, then he begins to ignore her. The couple breaks up when he initiates sex in order to impregnate her with his own demon heir and, although he attempts to protect her with his mother’s amulet, he and the dwarves eventually hypnotize her to be his servant.
Alas Ghoulies doesn’t satisfactorily address these issues and the resolution is too simplistic and pat. Jonathan and Rebecca naturally wind up back together and Jonathan’s complicity is waved away because he was under the influence and not himself. Still, until the film’s overly cheerful ending, Ghoulies clearly empathizes with Rebecca and paints Jonathan as a toxic, entitled asshole whose desire for power literally kills every healthy relationship in his life.
One of the film’s relationships is between Jonathan’s friends Mike (Scott Thomson), whose defining trait is that he always wears sunglasses, and pretty boy Eddie (David Dayan). The pair are constantly at each other’s side, such that they rarely appear in a scene alone (except to die). Eddie, in particular, is very hands-on with Mike, touching and jumping on his “friend” regularly. The most telling sign that this is, in fact, a queer relationship occurs in the last act: all of the partygoers naturally brand off into couples, including Mark (Ralph Seymour) and Donna (Mariska Hargitay!), Dick (Keith Joe Dick) and Robin (Charlene Cathleen)…and Eddie and Mike.
This pairing, as the boys laugh and smoke a joint while intimately leaning against each other, is visually and narratively coded as a relationship on par with the heterosexual coupling of the other friends. Throw in the iconic scene where meathead Dick is lured into a deep kiss by Malcolm (in disguise as a seductive topless woman) and Ghoulies winds up being surprisingly queer.
Naturally the film doesn’t dig into any of the emotional fall-out of these events and even suggesting that Levy and Bercovici considered these issues when writing the screenplay is probably giving Ghoulies too much credit. Still, it is intriguing that all of these components found their way into a charming little B movie about demon puppets. Back in 1985, Ghoulies may have seemed like little more than a cheap rip-off of Gremlins, but 35 years later, this bizarre creature feature has a little more substance than viewers might expect.
Plus, you know, a demon in a toilet.
Auteur Filmmaking is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days in reference to big name directors like Quentin Tarantino and even Wes Anderson, but the truth is that film is a collective medium, and no one person can be responsible for every single aspect of a particular production. However, the smaller a film’s budget, the bigger the individual impact of every creative decision behind it – and the easier it becomes to identify a genuine auteur.
This isn’t necessarily a judgement of value, as blockbuster filmmaking comes with its own challenges and a good movie remains a miracle regardless of how big the crew is, but I’ve always been more interested in soulful b-movies produced by handfuls of passionate artists than blockbusters backed by creative armies.
That’s why I love exploring low-budget franchises that never left the hands of their original creators, as you really get to know the artists involved with these flicks and can accompany their evolution over a period of time. With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to join me in this multi-part series as we look into a vampire saga helmed by one of the most fascinating auteurs of the 1990s. Naturally, I’m referring to Ted Nicolaou’s criminally underrated Subspecies!
The Birth of an Unlikely Horror Franchise
A proud graduate of the University of Texas’ Film program, Nicolaou got his start in the industry as a sound technician working on Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. From there, the filmmaker would go on to work for notorious indie producer Charles Band, the founder of both Empire Pictures and Full Moon Productions. According to Nicolaou, Band would usually contact him with an offer to direct a feature after more prominent filmmakers, such as the late, great Stuart Gordon, had already refused, meaning that his projects tended to have lower budgets and more inexperienced crew members.
The plans for Subspecies began almost immediately after the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, with screenwriter David Pabian turning in an initial draft of the film after a Romanian producer contacted Band and explained that Romanian tax incentives could cover the cost of film production there so long as Full Moon took care of the post-production process. Since Stuart Gordon was unwilling to travel to Romania, Ted Nicolaou ended up taking over the picture.
However, while the financial incentives meant that this Romanian-American co-production could look and feel much more expensive than it really was, with Nicolaou scouting for locations in advance and selecting real castle ruins to be featured in the movie, the director was soon faced with an incredibly difficult shooting process. In interviews, Nicolaou would later describe the experience as something of a nightmare, with language barriers and the generalized distrust of capitalist outsiders sabotaging many of the team’s plans for the film.
In fact, the script, which had already been altered by Band, ultimately had portions of it rewritten by both Jack Canson and Nicolaou himself in an attempt to adapt the story to their unique limitations.
Radu Is One of Horror’s Greatest Underrated Villains
In the finished film, which was released directly to video in 1991, we follow a pair of American anthropology students, Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and Lillian (Michelle McBride), as they reunite with their Romanian colleague Mara (Irina Movila) in her native land. The group intends to study the folklore surrounding the secluded town of Prejmer, but their research is cut short by the return of Radu Vladislas (Anders Hove) – the evil son of a vampire king (Angus Scrimm) who had previously established a truce with the region’s human residents. It’s now up to Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) to protect the girls from a fate worse than death as the power-hungry vampire seeks to control a magical artifact known as the Bloodstone.
Right off the bat, you may have noticed that the film’s premise sounds decidedly old-fashioned when compared to other vampire movies from around the same time. While the 1990s saw the rise of cool-looking bloodsuckers with badass elements borrowed from Westerns, as well as the sexy aristocrats of Anne Rice’s stories, Subspecies has a lot more in common with Nosferatu and the Hammer Horror series than any of its contemporaries.
This is both a blessing and a curse, as the film falls victim to overly familiar genre tropes while also standing out as a rare example of a ’90s vampire flick that isn’t afraid to flex its muscles as a Creature Feature. In fact, I’d argue that the presence of age-old clichés is a small price to pay when confronted with one of the most compelling vampire antagonists in all of cinema.
Named after Vlad the Impaler’s real-life brother, Anders Hove’s Radu is such a fascinating character and the main reason why Subspecies is still worth watching 35 years later. From his animalistic mannerisms to the joy he feels in simply existing as a chaotic creature of the night, and that’s not even mentioning the iconic makeup that almost certainly inspired the undead from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Radu is a hypnotic presence harkening back to a time when audiences didn’t mind purely evil villains that couldn’t be redeemed through tragic backstories or sex appeal.
Gothic Atmosphere on an Indie Budget
Of course, the film’s Romanian setting and authentic art direction do a lot of the heavy lifting whenever Radu isn’t around. From the masked festivals of the village to the visually interesting selection of local extras, Subspecies’ multicultural elements help it to stand out when compared to similar flicks from the ’90s.
That being said, Nicolaou’s unique eye for special effects and exciting action sequences – as well as Vlad Paunescu’s excellent cinematography – make the movie a delight for fans of expressionist cinema and old-timey gothic horror. While the crew is obviously dealing with limited resources, many of the flick’s blemishes (such as the odd stop-motion demons that serve Radu) end up feeling more like charming idiosyncrasies than actual flaws.
I’d argue that the only real issue here is pacing, as there are long stretches of film where the protagonists are simply bumbling around without realizing what’s really going on around them. Thankfully, the gorgeous visuals and surprisingly effective soundtrack usually make up for this. Besides, how can you dislike a movie where shotgun shells are loaded with rosary beads and our lead vampires duke it out in a dramatic swordfight that would feel out of place during the golden age of Hollywood?
Your overall enjoyment of Subspecies will mostly depend on whether or not you find low-budget corner-cutting and janky practical effects charming rather than distracting, but I know I’ll keep coming back to this Full Moon feature again and again in the future.
That being said, while this first movie is worth revisiting by its own merits as the birth of an indie horror icon, I’d like to invite you to join us as we look into the cult sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II soon.
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