- Directed by Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner
- Written by Ann Burgund, Thomas Doran, Frank M. Farel
- Stars Felix Ward, Maria Pechukas, Dan Scott
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 25 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEsZ2yjmGfI
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
There wasn’t much of a story, and much of the acting isn’t great, but the creature effects are pretty awesome.
Synopsis
We open on a small graveyard. We focus on one grave that’s chained shut and pulsing. Elsewhere, an old man talks to a coffin saying, “We’ll soon be together for all time,” ominously. He opens the coffin, and it’s a perfectly preserved, much-younger woman.
Billy walks through the forest with a bag on a stick, so we can see that he’s a runaway. Some kind of fanged ghoul watches him through the trees. A drifter talks to Billy in the woods about his parents missing his 13th birthday. As Billy walks away, the ghoul kills the man.
Two cars drive down the road after a party; they’re lost. The ghoul drops a log in the middle of the road, so they have to stop and move it. Duke and Peter argue with each other and show us what bad actors they both are.
Billy goes into the old mansion next to the cemetery. There’s a whole birthday party set up for him inside. Outside, a dwarf in a Jawa cloak sneaks inside– nope, it’s a little green ghoul-kid. He opens the big gift and finds a man’s head, who says, “Happy birthday, Billy!” Billy runs away.
Duke, Peter, and their friends arrive outside the same big house and graveyard. The old man with the coffin watches them from upstairs, “Welcome, fools!”
Billy runs for the ghoul from earlier, who has a hook for a hand. The ghoul catches Billy, claws him a few times then buries him alive in an open grave before returning to the big house.
Inside, with Duke and the gang, it’s a really boring party with only one annoying puppet. Carol and Duke find a weird occult figure in a box. Duke opens a closet and there’s an old skeleton in there. The dead man has a sort of Ouija board in its arm. The occult figure will work as a pointer. Carol knows all about these things. “It’s for communication with the dead.”
The group asks the Ouija board questions, and the old man upstairs sends the answers back down. It says none of them will leave this house alive. Carol then shrivels into a fanged demon right in front of the group. Lewis runs into the cemetery and is promptly swallowed by a grave.
The whole group goes outside and sees all manner of creepy dead things in the graveyard and quickly go back inside. They all decide on the smartest possible course of action and break into small groups.
Isabelle, the woman in the coffin, wakes up and calls the old man, ”Kreon.” She doesn’t want him anywhere near her; she wants to die. “I poisoned myself once before, I’ll find a way to do it again,” she warns.
Duke and Linda wind up in the basement. Suddenly, farting mud monsters rise out of the ground and slowly chase them around the basement. Linda breaks open a wine barrel and melts the three creatures.
Rich runs into the Carol-demon and the Ouija board. Linda and Duke argue. Dave and Adrienne just hang out together as the ghoul creeps around outside their room. Peter and Meegan find a body in the attic.
Kleon conjures up some helpers who make short work of Dave, but Adrienne gets away. Kleon talks to Isabelle about their many children. Korda, the little guy in the Jawa outfit, walks in. Isabelle runs off to get lost in the tunnels.
Adrienne runs into a dollar-store version of Man-Thing, who melts her into a puddle.
Duke, Linda, Peter, and Meegan finally come together and compare notes. Rich runs into a spider woman who traps him in her web. Duke and Peter go at it again, showing us that they’re better at choreographed fighting than acting. The big grim reaper statue in the room comes to life and finishes off Duke.
Peter pushes the Grim Reaper off the balcony, and “Death” explodes. As all of this is going on, the sneaky ghoul-man lurks everywhere and watches everything. The group runs into the Carol-Demon again, and she electrifies the group until they are about to pass out. Peter spots a vial in the dead mummy’s hand and crawls for it. He throws it at her, and sparks fly. We don’t really see them die, but since we never see them again at all, that’s the assumption.
Isabelle is still wandering around the tunnels, “I know now what I must do. Maybe I’ve always known.” Kleon somehow catches up to her, and they talk some more and then she stabs him in the forehead with an ice pick.
Isabelle climbs out the upstairs window and works herself down a tree. All the dead people start crawling out of their graves. There’s a really long chase with lots of crawling and clawing, but there are an awful lot of zombies to avoid. Isabelle finally gets into a car with a man, and they drive away.
We cut back to that chained-up grave that pulses in the graveyard. Then she realizes that the driver is the ghoul-man. The grave opens up and Kleon comes out, laughing uproariously. Game over!
Commentary
The acting here is atrocious all around. The story is pretty basic and uncreative as well. The soundtrack is pure 80s, which ain’t bad. The main reason to watch this one is for the creature effects, which are absolutely awesome. Some are costumes, some are stop motion, some are practical/puppetry effects, and most are really quite good.
For some reason, they decided to make the mud-men constantly fart, which wasn’t funny, it just made them silly. None of the other monsters were comic relief, so it made no sense.