From the very cool and quite freaky DVD cover and the intriguing ideas and themes, The Ghouls really did have potential to be good. Unfortunately it was just a very messy movie where the low budget very badly hurt it.The best thing about The Ghoul is the performance of Timothy Muskatell in the lead role. It is not a perfect or great performance by all means, the character is somewhat of a despicable one and Muskatell does fail to bring any empathy or humanity to him and there are a couple of times where he does play hard-nosed a bit too low-key. The good news about the performance though is that it is a commanding and brooding performance with a good deal of assurance and intensity, managing to bring some watchability to the movie. Joseph Pilato also brings some gravitas but isn't used enough to shine properly. The rest of the acting is very amateurish, being so low-key that there doesn't seem to be any acting going on, and the stock and unsubtly one –dimensional characterisation and incredibly stilted dialogue disadvantage them further.What stuck out as particularly bad with The Ghouls was the production values, or lack of, it was made on a very low-budget and it shows through painfully. The sets are basically parking lots and dimly lit sparse rooms, and the continuous shaky camera work not only is distracting in how dizzy it makes one feel, it makes it hard to work out what's going on. A lot of it feels like very random footage hurriedly edited together with little care or coherence. The very poorly recorded (very muddied) music is jarring in style and really distracts from the mood, even overwhelming the dialogue at times. The story had some interesting themes and ideas but unfortunately little is done with them, parts are mentioned and then skipped over or things are under-explained which makes it not an easy movie to follow sometimes, and it drags badly constantly with too long being spent on less-important or irrelevant scenes.The Ghouls doesn't succeed as a fun or scary movie either, it's too tedious and too bleak to be fun (taking the seediness to extremes with gratuitous nudity and even cheaper-looking gore, and the harrowing images and horror elements are so in your face, at times too random in placement and done with the subtlety of a sledgehammer that it becomes too much after a while) and the dull pacing and low-budget severely hurt the atmosphere. The titular creatures similarly make no impression, they are not used anywhere near enough and are poorly made-up, looking more goofy than menacing, also exuding no personality let down a sense of threat.All in all, despite the DVD cover/case and the ideas it had, The Ghouls is a ghoulishly bad movie with Muskatell's performance being the only thing that it has going for it. Some might like it, but this did nothing for me. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Instead of making this movie, writer/director Chad Ferrin could have saved himself a lot of trouble and just worn a big sandwich board around his neck and wrote on it "I have no idea what I'm doing". This is the sort of painfully cheap film that when characters try to walk across the street, they have to stop and let actual traffic go through the scene, so it's already got a couple strikes against it. The inept drudgery of Ferrin's storytelling adds another 87 strikes, sending The Ghouls not just down and out but deep into some nebulous underworld of sucky cinema.Eric Hayes (Timothy Muskatell) is a drunk and a four-pack-a-day smoker trying to eak out a living as a freelance video cameraman. Now, it's immediately obvious when Ferrin wrote this script he had no idea how the TV news business works or what news cameramen actually do, so he basically casts Hayes as some kind of news paparazzo who wanders around Hollywood hoping to get good footage to sell to the highest bidder. That's not what happens in the real world. I know it's a little thing, but failing to do even the most rudimentary research on what he's writing about really symbolizes Ferrin's sloppy efforts here.Anyway, in between obsessing over his ex-girlfriend and trying to sponge off everyone he meets, Hayes stumbles upon the story of a lifetime. He discovers the mean streets of Hollywood after dark have become the hunting ground for albino cannibals. Recruiting a fellow "news paparazzo" for help, Hayes sets out to get video of these ghouls. The rest of the tale is essentially just a bunch of bang-your-head-against-the-wall stupid stuff happening before an ending where it appears Ferrin is working out a grudge against a retarded cousin he never liked.There's so much crap to go over with The Ghouls. At least 30% of the movie appears to be random footage that Ferrin shot in downtown LA at night and then edited together to make his script stretch out to 81 minutes. There's a series of flashbacks where Ferrin displays a clear nipple fetish. A character wears a wig for absolutely no reason. There are several points where Ferrin obviously finds Timothy Muskatell smoking to be the most fascinating image he's ever seen. Eric Hayes is portrayed as a worthless scumbag and he's the "hero" of the movie. There's a character who's supposed to have his skin ripped off but as Ferrin pans the camera across his crotch, you can unmistakably see the outline of the guy's genitals underneath the bodysuit he's wearing for the scene. He looks like one of those anatomically incorrect Ken dolls with tomato paste smeared over him. Again, I know that seems like a little thing, but all Ferrin had to do was pan the camera 5 inches higher or lower to avoid shattering the suspension of disbelief. Of course, to suspend your disbelief for longer than the first 48 seconds of this film, you'd have to be too drunk to walk.The marketplace is flooded with cheap, cruddy horror flicks. However, The Ghouls is several rungs lower than the average cheap, cruddy horror flick. There's some bargain basement gore and violence without any genuine horror or shock. Ferrin makes albino cannibals as exciting as the slides from his grandparents' trip to the Grand Canyon.Don't watch this. Even if you like cheap, cruddy horror flicks, don't watch this. Even if you've seen every other horror movie ever made, don't watch this. You'd be better off watching The Sound of Music on mute while listening to Black Sabbath.

Bluntly , Chad Ferrin does not deserve the feedback, time, or thought for this movie. He is a 33 yr old who was done odd jobs as a production assistant on several 'productions' (AKA fetching coffee while a friend of a friend shoots bad student films) who has now found a taste of success with this film. I like to think it hasn't gone to his head and is humbled by it instead of hanging out in star-bucks in a black turtleneck with his nose in the air.(generalization cliché acknowledged)It is not a good film, it is not original, clever, or insightful. The dialog, acting, effects, plot , lighting, camera work are extremely amateur. It is a shame that Blockbuster tries and saves money by space-filing their shelves with this kind of cheaply obtained fare. However , My utter disdain for this movie would be all but gone if I had caught a viewing of this as part of a series of student films projected in a local Indy theater. I would have laughed and cheered at the sheer silliness of it. Don't waste your time with it. IT is not camp or classic simply because it is of poor quality. Just let Chad Ferrin drift into obscurity and hope in 20 years they aren't releasing a directors cut.

My Tuesday started off like most, wake up, shower, eat a balanced breakfast and head to work. My day was somewhat routine, no ups or downs, just......typical. I left work a little stressed and while driving home, I got a flat tire and was forced into 30 minutes of extra work that I had not intended. I got home late, and then attempted to wind down. What would I do? Watch some TV? Eat a snack and take a nap? "Hey man, do you wanna watch this movie, The Ghouls?" my roommate asked. "Hmmmmmmmm" I thought, this could be a pretty good idea.Man was I right! I quickly forgot about the ills of my day quite quickly as I was cast into a world of depravity and horrible film-making. I was blown away at all the talent bursting from the seems in this picture, from the A+ acting, to the directing, most likely helmed by a retarded 7 year old, or the inane pacing that made my life feel so much better than anyone else's associated with this movie.It's a really comforting feeling to seek satisfaction through the misfortune of others. Kind of like watching someone fall and spill their drink on themselves. This movie was like watching a really arrogant skate boarding teen brag to his friends about the 720 he's sure to pull off, only to break his face on the unforgiving pavement.I cherish the thought that I may ever get the chance to meet the makers of this film, perhaps at a low caliber festival they are sure to play, so I get the opportunity to belittle their amateur efforts. Hey I'll even make my own festival and fly them right to me just for that chance.You remember when you were a child and you wanted to do something that your Father said you weren't old enough for, like hold your new baby cousin, or help carve the Thanksgiving turkey? All to spare you the obvious misfortune of failing. Well Father Filmmaker should have told everyone involved that "You are not old enough, mature enough, competent enough or talented enough to make this movie". The childish filmmakers would have sighed "Awwwwwww but I want to!" and then stomped their feet as they left the room. But it would have spared them the massive rejection that they must be feeling now.If I had tried to ride a bike for the first time and bailed as badly as this, I surely would have learned to jump rope instead. Makers of The Ghouls: Please for the love of anything decent and proper; seek another form of employment, because you will only get hurt if you continue. Film-making doesn't like you.