Ghoul (2012)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Admirable film.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Not a bad film, good acting and make-up, good story line. Not sure why others have to group this film as 'stand by me' wanna-be film, it's not, although it does have kids as the lead and they do find a dead body, but its not in the same context as stand by me.I agree it's not really a horror movie, but then again there are parts that might make you jump.I like the way they told this tale and if it has to involve certain scenes that others call distasteful and they resort to calling a liker of the film a "tumble weed of trash", they sound rather prudish. This is the world we live in, there are evil (wo)man out there and this film is entertaining.

This movie is aimed at a tame audience, but has taken from a much less tame story. So I'm essentially writing this review so that people who feel closure is important and do not have the time to actually read the novel. I suggest you go to the Ghoul novel wikipedia page and read the plot. I promise closure...and also a little sadness.But in the whole of it I found the movie to be very watchable, while a lot of questions were left open, and the ending was abrupt, the movie throughout was an entertaining experienceI was happy with the acting, I may be alone but I believe the characters (Especially Timmy and Barry) to be placed perfectly in what it was obviously asked of them to play

This started off as a good movie. Set in the eighties I thought it would be like all the other cheesy movies, maybe kind of like Goonies but instead I got a lot of different directions this movie could go in and not one of them resolved.First they introduced child molestation and then domestic violence and alcoholism. All of these scenes were more intense and in fact scarier than any of the scenes involving "the Ghoul" which I'm still not quite sure existed.At the end of the movie the three children escape the mine shaft where the ghoul has been killing people with the help of one of the children's father that works at the cemetery. This man has been helping the ghoul by letting him have his way with whoever happens to be unfortunate enough to enter the old mine that is located under the cemetery. Does that make sense in the first please. Well anyways in a scene while drunk off his keester he yells down the mine shaft, to the ghoul, that he's not going to do it anymore that what he (the ghoul) gives him is not enough. Later the kids stumble upon a box near the shaft that has a lot of jewelry that used to belonged to the deceased buried at the cemetery. Was this his pay and if so couldn't have the child's father taken the deceased valuable possessions without the help of the ghoul which lives underground and as we find out later maybe cannot live in the sunlight so he stays underground.However none of that was as important to me as the issues surrounding the physical and sexual abuse of two of the children that were never resolved. I'm sure the directors or writers probably had some scenes in there that eluded to something or nother, a line that was said that wrapped up those aspects of the movie but it was just not enough for me to be satisfied. I gave this movie 3 stars because it did have potential but too many elements were left unresolved.

I've been a Brian Keene fan for a while and Ghoul is one of my favorite tales of horror. When I heard there would be a movie I was pretty excited, but I didn't want to get involved in a lot of the hype. As someone who happens to be a Stephen King fan, I know all about bad movie adaptations. Well, Ghoul isn't exactly a bad movie adaptation. It's just not a true adaptation. The movie does manage to convey the spirit of the book to a certain degree when it is not being hindered by the typical downfalls of every TV movie (the shaky acting, the questionable production, the lack of violence, etc.), but the scares and thrills just aren't there. The ultimate difference between the book and the movie is that the book is a terrifying and visceral experience. The movie starts out with possibilities of being the same, but skews off in a different direction and becomes something akin to a Lifetime movie. The ghoul that was so frightening in the book almost becomes a Scooby Doo villain in the movie. The book is terrifying and disturbing. The movie is only slightly disturbing and not very terrifying. The atmosphere of the movie is just too tame and too sterile to warrant terror. The disturbing factor is the relationship between Doug and his mother and Barry and his father, but the book handles it much better. So what the movie had going for it is nothing that hasn't already been done better before. But, judging the movie for what it is, I'd still say it was entertaining up to a point. A decent and watchable film, but I just didn't find it to be a very memorable movie. If you want a great growing-up adventure movie about kids then Stand By Me does a much better job. If you want a great disturbing horror movie about kids then there is always Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door. Ghoul just doesn't have that same zing.