Mariska Hargitay was a relatively unknown actress when she was cast in the role of Olivia Benson on the crime drama television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. When the show debuted in 1999, Benson had the rank of a junior detective, which has been steadily upgraded over the course of the show’s 26-season run to sergeant, commanding officer, lieutenant, and then captain. In playing the longest-running character in one of the longest-running drama shows in television history, Hargitay has become one of the highest-paid actresses on television and won two Emmy Awards.
Just as Mark Harmon’s iconic portrayal of Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS has overshadowed the rest of Harmon’s career, Hargitay has become so synonymous with the Benson character that her lengthy previous career has been virtually forgotten. However, the big dramatic leap that she made in 1999 with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is most impressive when contrasted with the rather uninspiring early years of Hargitay’s acting career, which began with her appearance in the campy 1985 horror film Ghoulies.
In Ghoulies, Hargitay plays Donna, one of a group of fun-loving college students who visit a secluded California estate at the invitation of a young man who performs occult rituals that result in the conjuration of a group of small demonic creatures called the Ghoulies, along with two dwarfs. Cheesy and derivative, Ghoulies is most interesting to watch today to marvel at how the now 61-year-old Hargitay was able to transcend the silliness of Ghoulies to become a fine dramatic actress.
Mariska Hargitay Started at the Bottom With ‘Ghoulies’
Ghoulies
- Release Date
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January 18, 1985
- Runtime
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81 Minutes
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Peter Liapis
Jonathan Graves
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Michael Des Barres
Malcolm Graves
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Like legendary scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, Mariska Hargitay was born into Hollywood royalty. She is the daughter of actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, who was killed in a car accident on June 29, 1967, when Hargitay, who was in the car with her mother during the accident, was only three years old. Her lineage, along with her own exotic beauty, defined her early acting career, as seen with her appearance in Ghoulies, which showcases Hargitay’s beauty and her dazzling smile without giving her anything interesting to do or say.
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In Ghoulies, Hargitay’s character, Donna, is introduced as a college party girl who arrives at the film’s central Los Angeles mansion location for a weekend of mindless fun, only to be mauled and killed by several of the film’s titular creatures at the house’s courtyard fountain before being resurrected in the film’s climactic scene. Any thoughts that Hargitay might have had of following in Curtis’s footsteps and attaining scream queen status with Ghoulies were stymied by her deep, throaty voice, which compelled the makers of Ghoulies to employ a sound effect to simulate Donna’s scream while she’s being attacked by the Ghoulies.
‘Ghoulies’ Inspired Three Bad Sequels
When Ghoulies was released theatrically in North America in January 1985, audiences and critics immediately recognized the film as being a blatant rip-off of the blockbuster 1984 comedy horror film Gremlins. As Ghoulies was in production at approximately the same time as Gremlins, the distributor of Gremlins, Warner Bros., sued to prevent Ghoulies from using this clearly imitative title to no avail.
While Ghoulies, which presently holds a 7% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a 20% audience score, received terrible critical reviews, the film grossed an estimated $35 million in combined box office and home video revenue against a $5 million production cost. Moreover, the film’s so-bad-it’s-good reputation engendered a sizable cult following for Ghoulies that resulted in several sequels, beginning with the limited 1987 release of Ghoulies II, which takes place at an amusement park, followed by Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go College in 1991, and Ghoulies IV in 1994.
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While Mariska Hargitay doesn’t appear in any of the Ghoulies sequels, her feature film appearances remained firmly entrenched within the B-Movie genre from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, as seen with the exploitative 1987 teen comedy film Jocks, in which he plays an older love interest for a teenage tennis prodigy. In the 1991 romantic comedy film Hard Time Romance, which marked the feature directorial debut of John Lee Hancock, Hargitay plays a woman who desperately wants to marry a second-rate rodeo cowboy. Hard Time Romance was followed by the 1991 martial arts action film The Perfect Weapon, in which she plays a karate instructor.
It Took 15 Years for Hargitay to Be Taken Seriously as an Actress
Up until the mid-1990s, Mariska Hargitay, who started acting after being a teen beauty queen, was pigeonholed as an actress in roles that required her to do little more than look beautiful. In the 1995 drama film Leaving Las Vegas, Hargitay plays a hooker who is a rival to Elisabeth Shue’s prostitute character Sera. Hargitay was also cast as the scantily-clad warrior Dulcea in the 1995 superhero film Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, only to be replaced by Gabrielle Fitzpatrick.
Nothing in her previous career suggested that she was an excellent choice to play the dramatic role of Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. That Hargitay has performed this role so capably and resonantly over the course of 26 seasons is a testament to her ability and determination, as well as the vision of Law & Order franchise creator Dick Wolf, who recognized qualities in Hargitay that had never previously been revealed, certainly not in Ghoulies. Ghoulies is streaming for free on Tubi.
