HORROR DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEWS

The Ghouligans is a series of vignettes about the wacky adventures of a group of misfit monsters just trying to fit in. They did the Mash… they did the Monster Mash!

Imagine The Kids in the Hall blended together with Gidget and all those beach party movies and you get The Ghouligans!. A series of misadventures as Wolfgang (Peter Bune), Count Farnham (Justin Hertz), Boris (Mike Koscik) and Void (Sean King) just try and get along in suburbia. The series of vignettes include a couple of fart jokes, some bad make-up and every once in awhile a funny moment. They’ve got most of the classic movie monsters covered including Boris as the Frankenstein monster, Void the Zombie, Wolfgang and Count Farnham as the Werewolf and Dracula duders. And these guys have some fun with the idea of the monsters and their adventures. There are good intentions here and I think they might be on to something because the jokes start off promising, yet they dwindle down to “didn’t they already do this” territory. Add to that a dreadfully unfortunate musical number about Transylvania that left me howling at the moon.

Although this feels like a one-joke misfire, I do think they had a few good ideas. Sean West as the zombie Void who keeps falling apart gave me a few ha ha’s. I liked the idea of a zombie with self esteem issues. I also dug Mike Koscik as Boris who happens to have a need for anger management courses. If these guys took this to another level and maybe went sitcom with it, it might just work. The concept is funny yet it falls apart when they just put the ghouls in silly situations. I also had fun with the music which included rockabilly and surf rock. Give these dudes a budget and some time to really write a script and The Ghouligans may just be a little more groovy.

I really wanted to dig this man! I mean... whoa dude, this could have been killer but unfortunately, this surfer dude went down too fast. Dug the music, dug Void and Boris but I wasn’t digging too much else. As the vignettes kept coming, the humor felt as flat as a surfboard. There’s a good idea here that could be funny with better scripts and a centralized plot. Its low tide for The Ghouligans and the waves are barely waist high… maybe the forecast will make for better surf later. OK… I’m done with the lame surfing references.