Seeing Waldo hooked up to that ventilator and clinging for dear life filled my heart with sorrow. Yes, he was a flawed man who defaced the statue of Carl Weathers in the Museum of Schlock, but even that despicable deed didn’t earn him this pitiful state. I left the room distraught, wondering if saving my Museum of Schlock was worth one human life.

— To be continued. 

This week’s movie is 1987’s Ghoulies II from director Albert Band. Yes, I’m going back to Ghoulies after my Critters stint because Ghoulies is the original. Ghoulies predated Critters by a full year. Our movie begins with a preacher escaping a mob of red hooded Satanists. This preacher has a sack filled with ghoulies that he stole from the cult. No doubt this cult had summoned them from hell. You know when the founding fathers were coming up with that whole First Amendment dealie, they should have put in a caveat about “no summoning of demons.”

The preacher has the bright idea of submerging the ghoulies in a tub of toxic sludge at an abandoned gas station, but gets knocked in the vat instead. The ghoulies fall in with him, but toxic sludge has no effect on demons from hell. Meanwhile, we’re introduced to Larry (Damon Martin) and Uncle Ned (Royal Dano), proprietors of a traveling funhouse called Satan’s Den. They stop at the gas station, but no one is there. The ghoulies see Satan’s visage on the side of the truck and hop onboard.

J. Downing plays Mr. Hardin, the yuppie owner of the carnival and we in the audience hate this rich, young man in the fancy suit and want to see him die! Mr. Hardin wants to replace Satan’s Den with female mud wrestling much to the chagrin of Sir Nigel Penneyweight (Phil Fondacaro), a dwarf that dresses up as a furry demon to scare guests at the fun house. Nigel also quotes Shakespeare a lot and is a trained thespian. Mr. Hardin says if Satan’s Den ticket sales don’t increase then he’s cutting the funhouse loose. Poor Uncle Ned will be out on the street if that happens!

The ghoulies make themselves at home in Satan’s Den, grabbing one of the dancing girls and making her part of the exhibit. Two little boys think the funhouse is uncool with its recreation of Frankenstein’s laboratory and the Mummy’s tomb, but get excited when they see the ghoulies. Five worthless teenagers enter the museum premises wanting to makeout and playing loud heavy metal music instead of appreciating the care of detail that went into a facsimile of Dracula’s castle. A flying ghoulie bites one of the teenagers on his hand and another spits green puke on the faces of the couple making out. The four of them abandon one of their friends, the guy without a date. When the ghoulies find him, they torture him on a rack before letting a swinging pendjulam slice him open. They then wrap up his corpse turning him into a mummy.

Eventually, Larry, Nigel, and the other carnival workers discover what the ghoulies have been up to and try to kill them to no avail. Mr. Hardin refuses to shut the carnival down even though these creatures have escaped the funhouse and terrorize the guests. The ghoulies run people over with bumper cars and cause rides to malfunction, killing guests as a result. Larry figures ordinary means can’t kill the ghoulies, but a magical solution might work.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hardin hides out in the men’s room while carnival guests scream for their lives. Unbeknownst to Mr. Hardin, one of the ghoulies is hiding inside the toilet. He takes his pants and sits down to do his business. Next is a close on his face as he screams in agony. One can only assume the ghoulie in the toilet got to dine on a frank and beans. And I’m okay with that. 

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, episode 599, episode 642, episode 643, episode 644, and episode 645) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.