There might be no movie more firmly rooted in my childhood than "Gremlins." While "Children of the Corn" has it beat for "first movie that actively scared the crap out of me" honors, this HAS to be one of the first movies that I ever saw. They used to air this beast right around Christmastime every year on NBC, and every single year I would whip out one of the handy-dandy blank tapes that my folks kept around and commence committing it magnetically, watch the hell out of it for the next month or so, get tired of it and tape over it...only to repeat the whole process again the following year. Of course, now I own the film on DVD, but with all of my Christmas season viewings of "Gremlins," I've now seen the movie approximately 75,000 times. I'm still not bored. This is still one of the best horror comedies of all time, better than (prepare to shell me, horror fans) the certainly good but, in my humble opinion, slightly overrated "Shaun of the Dead."The cast and crew read like a who's who of 1980s culture. It was one of the MANY projects at the time with some vague Steven Spielberg connection (he produced it). The director, Joe Dante, was responsible for the werewolf classic "The Howling" (now there's a movie that's long overdue for an IHR nod) as well as the best segment of the Spielberg-produced "Twilight Zone: The Movie" (Dante's was a remake of the ungodly "TZ" episode "It's the Good Life"). You had Corey Feldman in front of the camera being his usual extremely entertaining self in his long, awesome string of mischievous bastard roles, completely justifying why I'm a huge fan of the guy to this day. Phoebe Cates, who was THE it-girl at the time of this movie's release after immortal roles (and not just for her acting) in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Private School," shockingly did an about-face to play tough-but-sweet bartender Kate Beringer. And then there's Zach Galligan.
In short, nonstop fun from start to finish. "Gremlins," as a Spielberg project, was also blessed with a big special effects budget and some very talented people working behind the scenes to bring its titular little monsters to life, resulting in some of the more gross moments to hit theater screens at the time of its release. Especially considering that this flick carried a PG rating, and thus no doubt traumatized several innocent children in the audience. Not me, though. I thought this movie was pure awesomeness even as a five-year-old.
For the culturally impaired, the plot: as the film opens, Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton), is attempting to find a Christmas present for his son in Chinatown, Manhattan. After pawning off his latest invention "the Bathroom Buddy" on an unsuspecting old shop owner, he is shown the present that he seeks - a Mogwai, a fuzzy, cute little animal unlike anything Randall has ever seen. And for any child of the '80s, you know the rules for handling a Mogwai:
(1) Don't get him wet;
(2) Don't shine bright lines on him;
(3) And most importantly, WHATEVER YOU DO, don't feed him after midnight.
I don't know why, but I keep getting tempted to type those annoying :) smiley faces after several of the phrases in this review. I guess I'm just in an optimistic mood.
Logistics of the third rule aside (isn't it ALWAYS after midnight), Randall takes the Mogwai home to his family. We meet the wife and mother (Frances Lee McCain), and the son, Billy (Galligan). Billy himself is a kind-hearted son working at a bank to support his family, along with Kate (Cates), his primary love interest.
"Gremlins," as a movie which attempts to convey the sense of small-town America, gives us a large, colorful, eclectic cast of characters; the two standouts in the bunch that the film gives us in the early-goings are Mrs. Deegle (Polly Holiday), an old shrew who carries considerable financial influence in the town and hates Billy's poor dog with a passion; and, of course, Mr. Fudderman, played by the immortal Dick Miller (for the trivia-interested, Miller has cameo roles in every single film that Dante has ever directed), the town drunk who has a few stories about gremlins from his WWII days that he's just dying to share. While "Gremlins II" isn't the greatest film in the world, it's awesome on the merit that it turns Fudderman into a total badass.
There's your setup - and now the meat. Of course, Billy eventually inadvertently breaks one of the rules when Feldman's character accidentally spills some water on Gizmo (the name given to Billy's cute little Mogwai), causing the furry tyke to shoot several cocoons out of his back which soon multiply into other Mogwai. Unlike the angelic Gizmo, however, these Mogwai have decidedly NASTY sides to their personality, most noticeably the Mohawk-adorned Stripe, who seems to be the leader of this new batch of fur-sprouters. I really liked "Gremlins" when I was a kid, but I friggin' LOVED Stripe - he may have been the first horror villain that I enjoyed on his badass quotient alone, and for good reason. He may be small, but with the masterful effects work employed by Spielberg's top-notch crew, he has a distinctive personality and a true malevolence that is sadly lacking in many of the CGI creations of today's cinema.
To make a long story short, Stripe is eventually able to trick Billy into feeding him, and his cronies, a batch of chicken after midnight - which leads to them turning into gremlins - ugly, clawed instruments of destruction with the goal of turning Billy's small town into a war zone. With gremlins now running amok, it's up to Billy and Kate to step in and save the day...
Like most of the super-mega-successful movies of the '80s (especially the ones connected in some way to Spielberg), "Gremlins" is a textbook example of the classic three-act structure that sadly most modern action and sci-fi extravaganzas throw out the window. Start out with a basic situation, raise the stakes in the middle sections, and break out all hell in the finale. As such, this is phenomenal entertainment, and one of the essential Christmas-themed horror films of all time.
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