Movie Review: Ghoul (2012)

The movie stars Nolan Gould, Catherine Mary Stewart, Barry Corbin, Zach Rand and Trevor Harker.

My wife and I have watched a lot of horror movies in the nearly 15 years we've been together. And, as part of that, we have watched quite a few that weren't very good. So, it should really mean something when I say this film was one of the worst we have ever watched.

I think the best way to describe this movie is by saying it was "distracted." There was a horror movie plot in there somewhere. But, there was so much other stuff going on at the same time, the horror just never got a chance to really get going.

In fact, as I watched this movie, I couldn't help but wonder if we were watching a horror movie or some sort of twisted after school special. The majority of the film focused on the friends' various life problems, whether it was mourning the death of a grandfather, being beaten by a drunken father or molested by a drunken mother. The murderous ghoul was just mixed in on occasion. As a result of all of this, my wife and I were considerably more bored than we were scared.

To be fair, the ghoul, at least when it was first shown, was actually kind of creepy. And, I did like the idea of a creature that lived underneath a cemetery with some vague historical evidence it was something supernatural. However, once the truth about the ghoul's identity was revealed, that creepiness disappeared and the movie quickly went from bad to worse.

I think the worst part of this film (and that's saying a lot) had to be the ending, simply because it doesn't answer anything. We learn who the ghoul is. But, we don't know anything about his motivation for murdering the males and kidnapping females or why he's even living underground. Not to mention, the movie ends without solving any of the boys' life problems. As far as we know, the beatings/molestation will continue. You would think, with all the effort that was made to show us that with some pretty uncomfortable detail, there would be at least an attempt to have the film end happily for them but, there wasn't.

As I said before, this is easily one of the worst horror movies we have watched. In fact, it's so bad, I can't think of a single reason to recommend it.

My Grade: F