"The Ghouls" review

The Ghouls (2003)

Directed by Chad Ferrin
Writing credits Chad Ferrin

Timothy Muskatell.... Eric Hayes
Tina Birchfield.... Sue
James Gunn
Stephen Blackehart

Never before in the history of cinema has a bearded man smoked so many cigarettes. Even Silent Bob would be put to shame by how many cigarettes this guy sucks down. Every time he was on camera, (which was for most of the movie), I kept waiting for him to light up. I felt relief when he went for his lighter. First, he would suck the smoke back into his mouth and then blow it all out. Dude, let me tell you. This guy can smoke. Cigarettes and smoking is what "The Ghouls" is all about. This is what they knew how to film and they did it very well.

So our smoking, bearded hero is a ghoulish cameraman who likes to take pictures of death and destruction. He cruises through downtown L.A. and stumbles across some real ghouls. Seems the homeless like to chow down on whatever idiot happens to be around. Soon our hero must face the ghouls in a bloody showdown.

"The Ghouls" is a very low budget flick. It looks like something that was filmed with a bunch of friends over a couple of weekends. They found a few empty parking lots in L.A., scored some police and fire footage, smoked a lot of cigarettes and made a cheap horror flick. Most of "The Ghouls" is pretty predictable stuff although I did like the last twenty minutes. It was disturbing enough for me.

Overall, there's a feeling of sincerity that runs through this flick which stops me from taking a baseball bat to it. What I'm saying is, they tried. Can't say it was a total success but any movie with intestine eating and bloody entrails can't be all bad.

SCORE: 2 out of 4 cigarette smoking men