Gremlins (1984) Review

CLAYTON'S CHRISTMAS CINEMA!

Gremlins (1984) Review

Gremlins, produced by Steven Spielberg (who also produced The Goonies and Back to the Future during the same decade) and directed by Joe Dante (director of the original Piranha and The Howling), was originally released in the summer, despite having a Christmas theme, but has since gone on to become strongly connected to the holidays for many film fanatics, including myself.

It starts out with a businessman trying to find a Christmas present for his son Billy (Zach Galligan) at an eerie store in Chinatown. He tries to sell the old Asian shopkeeper one of his bogus products, which becomes a theme throughout the movie.  This guy is convinced his crazy inventions are world changing, but they actually suck. He buys a mysterious creature called a Mogwai, a cute furry little ball of love that comes with three specific rules. 1: Don’t expose him to bright lights. 2: Never get him wet. 3: Never, EVER, feed him after midnight. Billy loves his new pet, which he names Gizmo, but soon the innocent Gizmo gets wet and spawns several new Mogwai that are significantly more troublesome than the content (and suddenly concerned) Gizmo. The new Mogwai get their hands on some fried chicken and eat it after midnight, and soon they shed their cute exteriors and take on an uglier and more hostile form: Gremlins! The little group of monstrous misfits start by terrorizing Billy’s mom, but soon they get more water on them, spawn more Gremlins, and before Billy knows it, the whole town is overrun in hordes of Gremlins. It’s up to him, his girlfriend Kate (Phoebe Cates), and Gizmo to save the town and destroy the hard-partying Gremlins before it’s too late.

This is easily my favourite Christmas film ever and one of my favourite films in general. The antics of the Gremlins are so crazy and so relentless you can’t help but be entertained. I could go in depth with all the scenes involving some of their over the top actions—director Joe Dante’s love for Looney Tunes shines through—but I’ll refrain from reiterating them in case you’ve never seen it. In terms of the Christmas aspect, it hits all the necessary notes. There are some classic Christmas songs throughout, and many holiday traditions get assaulted. The Gremlins devour Christmas cookies, attack a guy in a Santa outfit, and pretend to be Christmas carollers in what is surely one of the most hilarious and over the top death scenes ever filmed. The amount of satire contained in this movie is palpable. It pokes fun at everything, from cheesy sci-fi plots, to horror clichés, to some of the absurdities with the commercialism of Christmas. It’s combo of comedy and horror (some of which becomes fairly extreme, including a Gremlin exploding in a microwave) even influenced the creation of the PG-13 rating—making it another one of Spielberg’s boundary-pushing productions.

I really can’t say enough good things about Gremlins. The sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which doesn’t take place at Christmas, is almost as overlooked as the original often is. In terms of sequels, it does what you would expect: get bigger, crazier, and more satirical, and in many ways (especially in terms of special effects) is superior to the original. But, as good as Gremlins 2 is, nothing can beat the first Gremlins. It’s happy, it’s sad, it’s fun, it’s scary, and above all, entertaining while capturing the Christmas spirit like no other film has.

For more on Gremlins, check out CCC Issue #3 and Movie vs. Movie Issue #1

http://cccmovies.blogspot.ca/2013/12/movie-vs-movie-issue-1-how-grinch-stole.html

http://cccmovies.blogspot.ca/2013/12/ccc-issue-3-top-5-christmas-movies.html