Ghouls and ghoul-like creatures have been portrayed in many instances in literature, television and film fantasy. In many cases these representations of ghouls are of people whose cannibalism has altered their mental health and physical appearance, driving them insane, and causing them to appear pale and malnourished.
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One Thousand and One Nights is almost certainly the earliest surviving literature that mentions ghouls, and many of the stories in that collection involve or reference ghouls. A prime example is the story "The History of Gherib and His Brother Agib", in which Gherib, an outcast prince, fights off a family of ravenous Ghouls and then enslaves them and converts them to Islam.[1]
In Hans Christian Andersen's literary fairy tale, "The Wild Swans" (1838), the heroine Eliza has to pass a group of ghouls feasting on a corpse in order to gather the graveyard nettles she needs to break the spell that has turned her brothers into swans.
Lord Byron made a reference to the ghouls in his epic poem “The Giaour” (1813): “Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip; / Then stalking to thy sullen grave, / Go - and with Gouls and Afrits rave; / Till these in horror shrink away/ From spectre more accursed than they!”[2]
Edgar Allan Poe mentions ghouls in the despairing fourth section ("Iron Bells") in the his 1848 poem "The Bells", describing them and their king as "the people, they that dwell up in the steeple" tolling the bells and glorying in the depressive effect on the hearers. "They are neither man nor woman— / They are neither brute nor human— / They are Ghouls."
In the short story "The Nameless Offspring" by Clark Ashton Smith, the ghoul is a cannibalistic humanoid which, besides eating the flesh of human corpses, procreates with those buried while still alive.
In the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, a ghoul is a member of a nocturnal subterranean race. Some ghouls were once human, but a diet of human corpses, and perhaps the tutelage of proper ghouls, mutated them into horrific bestial humanoids. In the short story "Pickman's Model" (1927), they are unutterably terrible monsters; however, in his earlier novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926), the ghouls are somewhat less disturbing, even comical at times, and both helpful and loyal to the protagonist. Richard Upton Pickman, a noteworthy Boston painter who disappeared mysteriously in "Pickman's Model", appears as a ghoul himself in Dream-Quest. Similar themes appear in "The Lurking Fear" (1922) and "The Rats in the Walls" (1924), both of which posit the existence of subterranean clans of degenerate, retrogressive cannibals or carrion-eating humans.
In modern and contemporary fiction, ghouls are often confused with other types of undead, usually the mindless varieties of zombies. Although modern fiction (post-1954) suggests that the latter beings share cannibalistic habits with ghouls, it is nonetheless generally believed that vampires and zombies prefer live prey.
In Neil Gaiman's novel The Graveyard Book, ghouls are small, ape-like creatures who make their home in an extradimensional realm called Ghûlheim. They travel to our world through ghoul-gates, and name themselves after the first person they eat on becoming a ghoul.
In 1987, Brian McNaughton wrote a series of dark fantasy short stories in which these Lovecraftian ghouls are the protagonists. The stories, collectively published as The Throne of Bones, were a critical success and the book went on to receive a World Fantasy Award for Best Collection.
Michael Slade's novel Ghoul features a heavy metal rock band with possible connections to a series of grisly murders.
In P.B. Kerr's Children of the Lamp, ghouls (spelled as "Ghuls") are one of the six tribes of djinn, and one of the three evil tribes.
In Larry Niven's Ringworld series, the ghouls are a race that eats the dead of the other races that live on the ringworld. They have a fairly sophisticated (for a post-apocalyptic people) culture, and are the only race with a communication system that traverses the entire ringworld: heliographs.
In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, ghouls are harmless creatures that live in the homes of wizards, making loud noises and occasionally groaning; a ghoul resides in the attic of the Weasley family's home as the family's pet. Context implies that in the Harry Potter universe, ghouls are closer to animals than human beings. They are translated in some versions as vampire, although they have nothing to do with the creatures.
In The Chronicles of Narnia, ghouls are creatures that serve the White Witch. In the 2005 movie and videogame, they resemble pale orcs carrying spears.
In Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, graveyards became infested with ghouls when the blessing of the graveyard was used up; this was usually caused when too many zombies were raised or voodoo rituals of evil nature were performed in the graveyard. Though they were once human, they are like pack animals, and they are not very smart. They will only attack if a person is vulnerable. A ghoul will run from a healthy, strong human being, and is afraid of fire.
In Max Brooks's The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Undead, zombies are frequently referred to as ghouls. In the subsequent novel World War Z: an Oral History Of The Zombie War, the term returns, as well as the term "G", usually used by military personal to abbreviate the word when recounting the war.
In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, ghouls are much like they are in the classic mythologies: humanoid monsters that feed on human flesh, and seem to be able to disguise themselves as ordinary humans. These ghouls are intelligent, as opposed to being mindless and feral monsters.
In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, the main antagonist, known as the Dark One, uses an army of humanoids known as Trollocs to wreak havoc upon the world. Trollocs are divided into different tribes which bear names similar to mythological creatures, such as demons, devils, gremlins and other nightmarish entities. One such tribe is the Al'ghol, which is probably a reference to the mythological ghoul.
In Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain series, the ghoul is an undead being created through an ancient Egyptian ritual to act as a servant to a vampire. St. Germain comes across a dying slave and resurrects him as his faithful servant, Roger, who accompanies him through his adventures for the next 2,000 years. Roger is indistinguishable from humans except for his immortality and that his diet consists of raw meat. In her book Cautionary Tales, there is a short story about a teenage ghoul, working the graveyard shift in a morgue, eating parts of unclaimed dead people.
Caitlín R. Kiernan has written a number of short stories and novels featuring ghouls (referred to as the ghul), including "The Dead and the Moonstruck" and "So Runs the World Away" (both from To Charles Fort, With Love, 2005), Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, and Daughter of Hounds. Kiernan's ghouls exhibit a blend of human and canine traits, are highly intelligent, live in subterranean cities, possess magical powers, and feed on the flesh of human corpses. According to Daughter of Hounds, they seem to have an extraterrestrial origin. They are often referred to as "The Hounds of Cain."
In R.L. Stine's Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls, ghouls are depicted as noncorporeal green mists that were humans at one time, and are able to steal bodies.
Jack Prelutsky's children's poetry book Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep includes a poem called "The Ghoul", in which the title creature "waits patiently beside the school to feast on girls and boys".[3]
In Rosario + Vampire, ghouls are a type of mindless, cannibalistic monster that can be created in two manners. Ordinary ghouls are created when an evil spirit possesses a corpse rarely, ghouls are created when a human repeatedly has monster blood injected into their veins. The monster blood grants the ghoul supernatural power but at the same time destroys the psyche, leaving them a mindless killing machine. They resemble vampires but are easily identified by the web-like marking surrounding the bite mark where the monster blood was injected and their complete lack of self-control. The lead male character, Tsukune Aono, eventually becomes one such ghoul due to the continuous intake of vampiric blood from Moka Akashiya.
In the novel Anubis (2005) by the German author Wolfgang Hohlbein, Ghouls are jackal-headed, humanoid scavengers that steal human corpses from graveyards. They reproduce by abducting and raping human women and are actually the servants of much more powerful beings from the planets orbiting the star Canicula. The Ghouls live in large underground cities where time and space is somewhat beyond human perception. In one of the cities, which is situated in the vicinity of San Francisco, there is a gateway to Canicula in a huge black pyramid, which opens twice every human lifetime. The Ghouls living in the city fall into some kind of paralyzing stasis as long as the gate is open. In the book, one of the protagonists manages to blow up the gateway, resulting in an explosion that not only destroys the city of the Ghouls, but also causes the earthquake that hit SF at the beginning of the 20th century. The culture of the beings from Canicula predates any advanced civilization and inspired the architecture and the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt. The gods of Egypt were modeled after the jackal-headed Ghouls and other monstrous inhabitants of these underground cities. The whole book draws heavily upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
In Frank Herbert's Dune series, a Ghola is a clone of a deceased person, brought to life via secretive Tleilaxu biotechnology. Gholas typically have no memories of their past lives, and are usually taught useful skills before awakened, and then sold to nobles by the Tleilaxu as servants and retainers. Sometimes, the Ghola are secretly programmed with hidden instructions to obey only Tleilaxu commands. Later in the series, it is shown that gholas are able to recover their past memories, albeit by an unpredictable technique to induce extreme stress in the ghola. The Tleilaxu elite have been using this technique to attain a form of serial immortality. It has been suggested that the term ghola originates in Arabic, as do other terms in the Dune series.
In the Cirque Du Freak series, creatures called the Guardians of Blood feed on the organs of the dead vampires, prepare the bodies of the dead for cremation, and donate blood to the clan. The character Gavner Purl calls them ghouls, and Darren Shan describes them as ghoulish.
Although many screenplays have featured ghouls, the first major motion picture on this theme was the 1933 British film The Ghoul. Boris Karloff plays a dying Egyptologist who possesses an occult gem, known as The Eternal Light, which he believes will grant him immortality if he is buried with it. His bickering, covetous heirs and associates would rather keep the jewel for themselves. Karloff vows to rise from his grave and avenge himself against anyone who meddles with his plan, and he keeps this promise when one of his colleagues steals The Eternal Light after his death.
In 1968, George A. Romero's groundbreaking film Night of the Living Dead combined reanimated corpses (zombies) with cannibalistic monsters (ghouls). The term "ghoul" was the one actually used in the film, although fans began referring to them as zombies after the film was released. Romero preferred "ghouls", and said he thought of the Caribbean creatures when he heard the term "zombies".
The 1975 British film The Ghoul stars Peter Cushing as a defrocked missionary whose son has developed a taste for human flesh while traveling in India. As the son's mind and body degenerate, Cushing has several young people dispatched and prepared as food for his offspring, whom he keeps locked up in the attic.
The 1975 anthology film The Monster Club featured a segment about a village of ghouls stumbled upon by an unwary traveller (Stuart Whitman), who temporarily escapes the creatures with the help of one half-human girl, but he is recaptured when it turns out that the ghouls have representatives inhabiting our normal human world.
Eddie Murphy used a ghoul (played by Kadeem Hardison) as a sidekick in Vampire in Brooklyn. This ghoul is a rotting corpse with a foul mouth and the propensity to lose body parts.
In the anime and manga series Hellsing, ghouls are zombie-like creatures that are created when a "chipped" (technological) vampire drains a victim to death, or, in the manga, where a vampire drains the blood of someone who is not a virgin. If fatally wounded, they instantly crumble to dust. They are under the control of the vampire who bites them, eat human flesh, and are intelligent enough to use firearms. It is not rare to see a vampire amass a small army of Ghouls for offense and defense.
One of Batman's greatest enemies is called Ra's al Ghul, whose name may derive from the original Arabic name for the star Algol in the constellation Perseus meaning "the monster's (i.e. Medusa's) head." An alternative derivation may be "Ras" (head) "of the monster" (al Ghul - although ghul may also be read as demon. See Ghoul). Created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams, he was introduced in Batman #232's "Daughter of the Demon" (June 1971). He has also appeared in the movie franchise in 2005's Batman Begins. Also, in the animated TV series Batman Beyond, there appears a villain called Ghoul, who is part of the new Joker's gang.
The title characters from the Ghoulies film series are depicted as little demons from Hell.
In the Tales from the Crypt episode from season 3, "Mournin' Mess", a number of homeless people are brutally murdered. A reporter on the case struggles to figure it all out and winds up in a newly-built cemetery. The group behind the cemetery turn out to be Ghouls (the acronym of the group no less) and several of them are people the reporter knew. The reporter winds up being eaten alive so that the Ghouls' secret can be kept.
In the Supernatural episode "Jumping The Shark", Sam Winchester is captured and tortured by two sibling ghouls in the guise of Sam's half- brother Adam and Adam's mother who had been killed and consumed by the ghouls. The ghouls mention that they can take the form of the people they have eaten and absorb their memories. Though they usually fed from corpses, the ghouls choose to start killing the living against Sam's father, who killed the ghoul's father several years before.
In the television series, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the character Charlie states that one of his likes is "ghouls".
Ghouls are encountered in Cadash.
In Diablo II, the Ghouls are beastly undead seen in the lower regions of the Catacombs of the Rogue Monastery. They are blue in color and are stronger than average Zombies. Sometimes when disturbing a coffin to loot the remains of its dweller, a player or his party may cause one of these fiends to arise nearby and attack. They can be found in the Catacombs (levels 1 through 4) in Act 1.
In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, there are creatures named "Ash Ghouls", servants of Dagoth Ur. They have leathery grey skin and resemble a Dunmer with an anteater's snout. These creatures are not actually undead.
In the Fallout series, ghouls are formerly human creatures created by radiation and an unknown genotype. In the Shin Megami Tensei series of RPGs, Ghoul appears as a recurring low-level demon. In the first Digital Devil Saga they serve as the very first enemies, while they appear as personae of the Devil arcana in Persona 3 and Persona 4.
In the tabletop wargame Warhammer, ghouls are not undead creatures, but simply mutated, cannibalistic humans driven mad by famine and war, similar to the Wendigo of Algonquian belief.
In the Call of Cthulhu game, ghouls are depicted as described in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft.
The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons depicts ghouls as a type of undead creature that craves human flesh, preferably from the living. They have the ability to paralyze their victims, though elves are immune. A ghast is a more powerful type of ghoul. Even elves are not immune to a ghast's paralyzing touch.
In the role-playing game Shadowrun, ghouls are humans infected by a virus called the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus (HMHVV or "humvee"). They must eat human or metahuman flesh as a result of their infection to maintain their life force.
In the computer RPG Planescape: Torment, ghouls make up a third of the undead population (collectively known as the Dead Nations) in the catacombs under the city of Sigil. Here, the ghouls are depicted as feral creatures, and only grudgingly allying themselves with the other undead factions, the skeletons and zombies, out of fear of the skeletons' Silent King, and their mortal enemies, the hive mind population of cranium rats.
In White Wolf's World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines and Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, Ghouls are regular mortals fed with vampiric Vitae (blood) which develop a few minor supernatural powers (basically enhanced physical attributes). Usually they develop a strong loyalty and devotion to the first vampire to feed them blood regularly. Depending on what bloodline the ghoul feeds from they gain psychological traits related to them, for example a ghoul who feeds from a Malkavian vampire becomes slightly insane.
In the Myth series, the Ghouls (spelt Ghol) are a race of savage desert dwelling humanoids who specialise in creation and farming of the undead and ancient foes of the Dwarves.
In the game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, The Frozen Throne, the ghoul is the main light infantry and lumber harvesting unit of the Undead Scourge faction. In World of Warcraft, they are a stage of undeath. They serve the Undead Scourge or independent necromancers as reanimated corpses of victims of the Scourge plague. They first become zombies, and over time the magic used to reanimate them corrupts the body, elongating the fingers and pronouncing the eye sockets, jaw and joints. They are captured and exorcised by the Forsaken to return the personality and free will to the ghoul. Ghouls are also avaliable as a summoned minion to aid the Death Knight, the first 'Hero' class in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. They have the ability to attack enemy players and mobs, but they are not permanent and will disappear after a short period of time.
In Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, the ghouls are reanimated bodies. Unlike zombies, they do not have signs of rot, and are agile and swift attackers.
In RuneScape, ghouls are encountered as a lesser enemy. As the game describes them, ghouls are not undead, but they are stronger and tougher than they seem. However, they are cowardly and flee if losing a fight.
In many other MMORPG games, such as Tibia, Final Fantasy XI, City of Heroes and Ragnarok Online ghouls are one of the NPC enemies in the game.
In most of the newer titles in the Castlevania series, ghouls are nearly identical to zombies, differing only by having more strength, resistance and have a different color.
In Microprose's Master of Magic, Ghouls are the basic mid-tier Death creatures (on par with the Nāgas of Sorcery or the Giant Spiders of Nature). Their attack is venomous and live beings killed mostly by Ghouls will return to life as mindless undead in service of the ghouls and their master. They also share the same immunities of undead beings (such as immunity to mind spells and poison).
Ghouls are featured in a multitude of varieties in the online game Kingdom of Loathing. They are deliberately misspelled Ghuol [sic], as they live in the (also deliberately misspelled) Misspelled Cemetary [sic], and are an obvious parody of traditional ideas of ghouls.
Other games have painted a more sympathetic portrait. In Shadowrun, ghouls are victims of a mutating virus that transforms them into cannibals. Originally portrayed as monsters, subsequent supplements have featured ghoul activists arguing for their rights as a people. The Delta Green supplement for Call of Cthulhu presents a ghoul character whose unique abilities are exploited for forensic purposes.
In Dragon Age, those who get infected with the Darkspawn Taint and survive become ghouls, following the Darkspawn under the mental influence of the Archdemon, and eventually dying after a few months.
ghouls are mentioned at the song of the oldschool death metal band "morbid angel" "chapel of ghouls" from the album "altars of madness" (1989)
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, one of the playable characters is a ghoul named Ghost Roaster who eats ghosts and bashes enemies with a spiked ball and chain tail.