A young couple (Peter Liapis and Lisa Pelikan) inherit a huge old house from his family. It's deserted and falling apart so naturally they move in. It seems his dad was a witch and had a coven that sacrificed people. After they move in he starts practicing black magic and doing rituals--just like dear old dad. It seems dad is eager to come back from the dead and start the coven again...
As you can see this has nothing to do with gremlins or such--it's a humans vs. witchcraft movie--and a bad one. I started realizing I was in trouble with opening credits "Empire Pictures presents A Charles Band Production". Empire made dreadful no budget horror films and Charles Band produced all of them. That should have been enough for me to grab the remote and change channels--but I kept watching.
The acting is pretty terrible--Pelikan and Liapis are bad but top honors go to Scott Thomson as their incredibly annoying friend Mike. The direction is lousy--there's not even an establishing shot of the house until 15 minutes in! The script is dull and drags along. As for the "ghoulies"---they look pretty silly and have absolutely no reason to be in the movie. They were probably added in because "Gremlins" was such a hit the year before.
There's next to no blood, no gore and the attack scenes looks pretty silly (except for one somewhat creepy one involving a killer clown). It all ends up in a silly battle between a good witch and a bad witch with sub-par special effects. Even an appearance by Jack Nance can't save this.
This was inexplicably a HUGE hit in 1985 (mostly with kids) and led to 2 sequels (which I refuse to see). This can't even be enjoyed on a bad/good level or as camp--it's too boring! Avoid.
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