Horror Movie Review: Ghoul School (1990)

Trying way to hard to be a ‘so bad it’s good movie’, the only thing Ghoul School accomplishes is being bad. Oh so very bad.

The official IMDB synopsis reads like this:

Sex, babes and rock ‘n roll! Two thugs in search of hidden treasure mistakenly unleash a chemical into the school’s water supply, causing everyone it comes into contact with to become flesh-eating ghouls.

It sounds like an amazingly fun ‘B’ movie horror but it is not. Instead its forced attempts at humour, mixed with way below average effects, horrid acting and bare-bones plot results in something truly horrific.

Two men for reasons that are never explained break into a school basement looking for something. They don’t find this something so shoot the janitor and release chemicals into the water supply. From this point onward, anyone who comes into contact with water in the school is turned into a demonic monster with flesh on their mind.

The swimming team are first, infected and transformed into blueish/greenish faced demons with pointy teeth. They begin to attack the school population resulting in a pair of nerds, basketball players and members of a heavy metal band having to stop them.

At almost every step, Ghoul School disappoints. You can expect cheesy acting but there’s no excuse for bad acting. There isn’t a person here who puts in a good shift and you’ll find yourself wanting to mute the film so you don’t have to hear the inane dialogue.

Nowhere is that at its worst then during the films face-planting attempts at humour. One such scene, that goes on for absolutely ages, is a joke monologue. Not a single one will make you laugh and the mugging for the camera by the actors just makes it worse.

Then we have the part that really should have made Ghoul School worthwhile… the gore. In the vein of Class of Nuke ‘Em High, Ghoul School should have been a bloodbath of gooey gore but it isn’t. In fact, it’s far too light on it overall with only the occasional bad effect or make-up offering anything for gore-hounds.

It’s relief that is felt when Ghoul School ends which is the last thing anyone wants to feel when watching a horror movie.