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Movie of the Day - 11/09/2006
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The Ghouls This horror film is about as low budget as you can get.  It was shot in DV for an estimated budget of $9,000.  Apparently even the director had to sell his car to make the movie.  But given those limitations, the film actually is not bad. The story follows a morally suspect paparazzi type who makes a living taping car chases, fires, murders and whatever else the news is willing to pick up.   Unfortunately, he's broke, his girlfriend wants nothing to do with him and he has to compete with the other vultures out there that sometimes get to the scene before he does.  When he stumbles across a scene he believes to be homeless people raping a woman, he pulls his camera out and starts filming.  Quite suddenly, he realizes that he was wrong about their intent, as he sees them start eating the woman alive.  Suddenly, he has a story that could make him a lot of money. It would be easy to confuse The Ghouls with a zombie film, but the reality is that it really isn't.  These ghouls like to eat human flesh and kind of act like zombies, but happen to be quite alive and are somewhat of a family.  You know... Ghouls!  Sort of...  At any rate, I have seen this film marketed as a zombie film and if that is what you are looking for, you're not going to find it here. Usually I tend to get turned off by full-length films shot on DV, as I tend to see it as the first sign of a level of laziness on the filmmaker's behalf.  I come to expect that what will follow will be bad audio (usually shot with the DV's microphone), odd camera angles that just "look cool" and below average acting.  I all too well understand the differences in cost between shooting on film versus shooting on DV, but unless you are using video for a pseudo-doc approach, I am just a cut and dry film fan.  I guess it is just as simple as knowing that most of the intended audience will be turned off by the DV approach, so I always wonder why they didn't wait until they had a bit more funding to put it on film. That said I have to give writer/director Chad Ferrin a little credit.  Unfortunately, this is not a pseudo-doc, but the other problems are addressed.  The audio is clear for the most part, there actually appears to be a reason for the way he frames shots and the acting is not that bad.  I was even a little surprised to see some film-noir influence mixed in there.  What really surprised me though is that I actually forgot about the actual equipment used to shoot the film and was drawn into the story. The Ghouls does have some shortcomings.  There is bit of nudity in the film that comes off quite gratuitous.  Early in the film the main character sits and films a man stabbing a naked woman over and over, but hardly a mention of it afterwards.  I guess the set-up was to show that the guy was just sleazy, but later when he does encounter the ghouls eating the woman; she is inexplicably nude as well.  I don't know if there was some T&A quota that he forced to meet or what, but it feels too much like exploitation and really seems out of place from the rest of the movie.  Finally, the fact that it was shot on DV, no matter how good, will definitely turn off more than one viewer. For those that do have patience to sit through its low budget presentation, The Ghouls is a decent little film.  Not to beat a dead horse, but I left wondering what it might have been with a bigger budget and a more professional approach.  But given what they had to work with, they did an admirable job.
Filed under: Movies, Movie of the Day	November 9, 2006, 3:03 pm | Permalink | 0 Comments
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