GHOUL SCHOOL

A University's drunken janitor keeps a stash of ill-gotten gains in his basement room, and a former student has teamed up with a hardened criminal to steal it from him.

Meanwhile, we learn that the school dance is approaching and the principal announces over the Tannoy speaker that the band playing - as voted for by the students - is heavy rock act Bloodsucking Ghouls. No-one is more excited about this than horror film geeks Steve (William Friedman, FLICKS) and Jeff (Scott Gordon, SEARCHING FOR HAIZMANN).

But then the robbers arrive, tying the janitor up and brutally beating him in an attempt to locate his stash. The janitor won't speak, so they start tearing the place apart and discover a secret room. On the wall there's a button that arouses their curiosity - against the criminal's instincts, the former student presses the button and accidentally unleashes a poisonous gas (there's shades of the opening of THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD during this scene).

Before long, the gas spreads up from the basement and into the University where it starts turning students into flesh-eating zombies.

The first incident occurs in the campus swimming pool, where attendants are savaged and literally torn to pieces by half a dozen slavering, blue ghouls in tight Speedos.

Oblivious to all this commotion, cool rock singer Blade and his band Bloodsucking Ghouls are busy rehearsing for the dance in the school's drama hall. Elsewhere on the grounds, Steve and Jeff are finishing off detention - and get a nasty surprise when they run into zombies while leaving for the night!

Ultimately, it unfolds that Steve and Jeff are trapped on campus overnight with a handful of students and their favourite rock band, all of whom must pitch together to end the zombie infestation.

Dumb fun with a cheesy 80s synth score and unconvincing yet splattery FX, GHOUL SCHOOL works as fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek entertainment of the cheapest variety.

Don't expect solid performances or any twists in the plot: this is by-the-numbers DIY gore, with a look that's very similar to other cheapo efforts of the era such as KILLING SPREE and THE DEAD NEXT DOOR. Personally, I found GHOUL SCHOOL much more engaging than the former but lacking the scope and ambition of the latter (incidentally, J R Bookwalter's name crops up in the credits as executive producer).

The disc from Camp Motion Pictures is, like all other EI-affiliated releases, a pretty dependable affair.

Presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, GHOUL SCHOOL looks good. The newly generated opening credits suggest a flawlessly sharp picture, but alas the rest of the film shows its age and low budget. But that's not to say it's not watchable - images are reasonably sharp and colours remain bright and vivid throughout. The film is presented fully uncut.

The English mono audio track is excellent - very loud and clear.

Menu pages are static and uninvolving (although there's a rousing 90-second disc intro that's filled with gore, announcing to a naff disco score that "The awesome 80s are back!"). There's no scene-selection menu, but you can skip through the film remotely via 10 chapters.

The extras compiled for this release are very impressive indeed:

Not one, not two, but three audio commentary tracks. Director-of-photography Michael Raso turns up on two of them, joined on one by producer John Fedele. While these two tracks aren't bad, its director Tim O'Rawe's talk-track that surfaces as the most revealing. O'Rawe points out shots he likes, but for the most part moans about how he was unable to do things the way he wanted due to the budget or the FX artist leaving the set, or whatever. Although a little tiresome due to his complaining, the track is definitely the most informative of the three.

A 1988 promo reel is just shy of 5 minutes in length, and benefits from optional commentary by Fedele and Raso.

More interesting is a 9-minute Making Of from 1990. This includes plenty of gory clips from the film, some behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot, plus interviews with various cast and crew members. Both of these short featurettes have good video quality.

A more recent featurette taking a 2-and-a-half-minute look at the photographing of the (shit) DVD cover looks worse - really faded video footage, and - aside from model Erica Smith's cleavage being very nice -is not of any interest.

The original opening credits are presented as a curiosity piece, and are very good indeed. Colourful cartoon credits are set to awful 80s disco music - it's all very reminiscent of the opening credits for the superior NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (and much better than the piss-awful smoke-filled new credits).

We also get treated to some interesting short films by various contributors of GHOUL SCHOOL (Fedele, Raso and O'Rawe mainly).

SAY NO TO DRUGS is a simple yet effective 10-minute yarn where a group of people meet very gory deaths at the hands of the Grim Reaper. HALLOWEEN TALE is a less interesting shot-on-video effort, although it does boast optional commentary and it's own bloopers reel.

HALLOWEEN TAKEOVER is 28 minutes of rubbish (actually filmed for cable TV0, again with optional commentary.

Then we get DEAD WEIGHT, the best of the short films on offer. It's a 21-minute grimy black-and-white affair with a dark gangster tone to it. Very well conceived, no-budget stuff with a hard edge. It also benefits from a commentary track by Fedele and Raso.

Finally, there's Camp's usual vault of trailers - CANNIBAL CAMPOUT, WOODCHIPPER MASSACRE, VIDEO VIOLENCE 1 & 2 and GHOUL SCHOOL.

GHOUL SCHOOL isn't anything like art (even the director doesn't seem to like it much). But it's got plenty of gore, doesn't take itself too seriously and is never boring. And this disc from Camp is brimming with bonus material.

Review by Stu Willis