Ghoulies IV (1994) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Detective Jonathan Graves (Pete Liapis) is investigating a warehouse robbery and he's convinced that things aren't adding up. It turns out that a dark secret from his past is now taking form. You see, previously he practiced black magic with a girlfriend who is now connected to Faust and she plans on getting Jonathan back into the darkness so that Faust can come to life.Yes, that plot belongs to GHOULIES IV, although, as you can tell, it almost seems like this was originally meant to be a completely different film but the producers decided to try and cash in on the GHOULIES name. There are a couple ghoulie creatures thrown in but these here are basically just very minor supporting characters who are there for comic relief.Director Jim Wynorski has created some very fun "B" pictures and for my money I enjoy watching his films because he seems to know what fans want. This here isn't a CITIZEN KANE type of film so one shouldn't be expecting that. What the director does offer up are some funny situations, a decent low-rent story and he at least makes it fun throughout. Yes, this isn't really a GHOULIES movie but I still found plenty to enjoy here.I thought the whole banter between the Detective and his new partner/former lover was a lot of fun. I thought Liapis and Barbara Alyn Woods had some fun chemistry that added to some entertainment. I also thought the ghoulies themselves were fun here. There are only two of them and they're basically playing an Abbott and Costello like performance where they back talk each other and slap each other around like The Three Stooges. There's even a funny spoof of The Honeymooners with a couple other characters who are only here because it made for a funny homage.As I said, it's somewhat hard to count this as a GOULIES film but it's certainly better than the previous three movies. The film moves at a nice pace, contains some fun straight-to-VHS type of action and the story is decent enough for this type of movie.

This is a great movie. It is better then the first Ghoulies movie. That is not a very good movie. This is better then Ghoulies go to collage. That one is pretty good. But this is better. This is very scary. Ghoulies II is scarier. But still this very scary. A lot scary then silence of the lambs ever could be. I do not know why this got a 2.5. That is just underrating it. It has a great story line. It also has great special effects. And it has great acting. I give 8 out of 10. It is one of the scariest movie of the 90's. This is a great movie. See it. I do not know why people hate it. It is a great horror film. If you like good horror stories then you will like this movie.

Okay, so I have a little thing for director Jim Wynorsky. Or at least I used to have, because it's been a while since I've seen a film of his. Wynorski must be one of my favorite bad-movie-makers ever. It's as simple as that. And "Ghoulies IV" really is one of the biggest stinkers of his I've ever seen. The only screen time the notorious Ghoulies have in this 4th installment is actually taken from footage out of the first movie. That's one thing you can say about Wynorski: He rips off whatever he can, even right down to his own movies (this not being the case for "Ghoulies IV", though - you have to see "976-Evil II" and "Storm Trooper" to understand this). But in this film we do have: Two extremely annoying and totally unfunny troll-midgets, a bunch of cheap & silly animated effects, a mysterious demon-summoning red diamond, bad acting, a retarded storyline that leads to nowhere, a drugstore shoot-out totally unrelated to the plot, yap yap yap and so on and so on... And best thing of all: Stacie Randall running around in a tight black latex suit with her boobies half exposed (all the time!). Great fun, but I have this slightest feeling that no-one is going to agree with me on that.

Being the child of the 80's that I am the original Ghoulies held a special place for me but the franchise fell at a steady pace from the first film onwards. There's plenty of argument as to whether or not Ghoulies 3 beats this one out as the worst. In my opinion tho this one was fittingly the last nail in the coffin. About the ONLY redeeming aspect was that they at least TRIED to tie it to the original film but everything else about the movie is so terrible that not even Peter Liapis reprising his role as Jonathon could help it. My final complaint? Like stated in other comments WHERE ARE THE GHOULIES??? How could they rob us of The Cat, Rat, Bat, and the ever lovable toilet swimming Green Ghoulie and replace them with 2 poorly made costumed "Little People" that are the Lite and Dark ghoulies? Its sad that after seeing this flick I was actually relieved the franchise was laid to rest after having so many fond memories of the previous films