It 100% feels like a straight to DVD movie with a micro-budget: none of the performances are great, the cinematography is bland, the effects are bad, and the video quality very much looks like it was shot on an IPhone. The story does do some interesting things (and some wildly inappropriate things), but for the most part, it's pretty standard. Nolan Gould is easily the stand out in this otherwise uninteresting film. There are a lot of under-developed plot elements, like why our main trio has a group of enemies. I see a lot of comparisons to Stephen King for this film and I guess I can see the vague influence, but he always took the time to establish why two people hated each other, this movie just has the "bad guys" out for revenge and barely even gave them names. The movie is 81 minutes too long; just do a five minute scene setting this up. Instead, they give us a very uncomfortable incest/rape storyline that feels way out of place in what otherwise is a teen horror movie. Ghoul isn't a bad movie, but it certainly doesn't feel like a real one.
It 100% feels like a straight to DVD movie with a micro-budget: none of the performances are great, the cinematography is bland, the effects are bad, and the video quality very much looks like it was shot on an IPhone. The story does do some interesting things (and some wildly inappropriate things), but for the most part, it's pretty standard. Nolan Gould is easily the stand out in this otherwise uninteresting film. There are a lot of under-developed plot elements, like why our main trio has a group of enemies. I see a lot of comparisons to Stephen King for this film and I guess I can see the vague influence, but he always took the time to establish why two people hated each other, this movie just has the "bad guys" out for revenge and barely even gave them names. The movie is 81 minutes too long; just do a five minute scene setting this up. Instead, they give us a very uncomfortable incest/rape storyline that feels way out of place in what otherwise is a teen horror movie. Ghoul isn't a bad movie, but it certainly doesn't feel like a real one.
