Quite honestly, Chad Ferrin’s The Ghouls is one of those rare, sad pics which tries and tries but, for every (mis)step it takes, falls behind that much more. However, given the director’s humility, circumstances, and effort, we can forgive such a work since we cannot find it reprehensible on any particular count. Absolved of any serious wrongdoing, we then are obliged to issue Ferrin a good-naturedly pat on the back and hope him the best the next go around.
Eric Hayes (Timothy Muskatell) is a hand-to-mouth freelance photo journalist living in Los Angeles. After capturing three inhuman beings feeding upon a woman, he must return for more footage but finds himself being subject to the carnage as opposed to a passive observer.
It is obvious that Ferrin was trying really hard to make a substantial film with The Ghouls, beginning with the selling of his 19681/2 Ford Mustang in order to finance the film. However, though there are obvious signs of aesthetic effort, such as the title serving as a metaphor for the human underbelly of society witness throughout as the film’s poor cinematography is a modest effort to have form follow function, what ultimately occurs is that the work winds up submerging itself in the quagmire of its own self-abasement. In this sense, if Ferrin wasn’t so apprehensive about not getting his point across by having his characters verbally berate one another in every single scene, and instead permit the format and setting to represent the characters’ plights, we would have had something. Instead, we have a didactically unrepentant diatribe which accuses most every facet of society as being solely responsible for the ills of the world.
This isn’t to imply that Ferrin is devoid of talent, but The Ghouls is more of what established filmmakers commonly refer to as their bastard stepchildren: Works that had to be made in order to gain experience while honing in on the craft as well as refining one’s own style but, once accomplished, irritatingly remain as proof of the director not innately producing masterpieces shortly after coming out of the womb.
Now, on this note I’m not prophesizing that Ferrin is the next Kubrick, but rather that, though The Ghouls isn’t great by any stretch of the imagination, its errors are understandable and therefore forgivable considering Ferrin was at least trying to do something. So, end of the day assessment, we have The Ghouls, Chad Ferrin’s early work, warts and all.
Trivia tidbit: Undead veterans Joseph Pilato, from George Romero’s Day of the Dead, and James Gunn, the screenwriter of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, appear in the film.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
