Review: Gremlins

Shonky wannabe inventor Rand Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) is shopping for Christmas gifts in the back alleys of Chinatown. He enters a shop owned by pipe-smoking Keye Luke, and spots an adorable little creature called a Mogwai. After some haggling…the old man still says no. However, the store owner’s son, knowing they can’t refuse a paying customer, agrees to sell the creature to Peltzer without the old man’s knowledge. The Mogwai is to be the present for Peltzer’s son Billy (Zach Galligan), who is immediately taken with the cute little furball, whom he calls Gizmo. However, Peltzer warns Billy that there are three rules for taking care of such a creature: 1) Bright lights are a no-no, sunlight could kill him. 2) Do not get the creature wet. Ever. 3) Most importantly, never, ever feed the creature after midnight. Well, obviously all three rules are gonna get broken aren’t they? At first, this results in Gizmo spawning several juvenile delinquent Mogwai who prove quite the handful. They also trick poor Billy into feeding them after midnight…and that’s when the title mean, green, and ugly creatures are spawned and the small wintry town of Kingston Falls (played by the same set used subsequently for “Back to the Future”) is set-upon by a bunch of pint-sized killer goblin-esque creatures. Phoebe Cates (Obligatory ‘Damn you, Kevin Kline!) is the pretty girl Billy is keen on, who has her own Christmas horror story in her past. Polly Holliday plays Mrs. Deagle, the town grinch. Judge Reinhold plays Billy’s smug bank manager boss (in a role that was sadly cut down before the film went to theatres). Frances Lee McCain plays Billy’s mother, who won’t let a bunch of savage Gremlins get in the way of her baking gingerbread men, thank you very much! Harry Carey Jr. and Dick Miller are among the veteran character actors filling out various townsfolk.

Joe Dante (“Piranha”, “Innerspace”, “Matinee”), a disciple of Steven Spielberg, is a most frustrating filmmaker. He has never made a true masterpiece like Spielberg (who has made several), and several of his films are frustratingly not as good as they could be. Endings in particular seem to be a frequent issue for him (“Explorers” was looking damn good up until the conclusion, for instance). However, he’s made at least two near-classics, 1981’s “The Howling” (which is a Top 2 werewolf movie if you ask me and Dante’s best film) and this gleefully nasty yuletide creature feature from 1984. Although the screenplay is credited to fellow Spielberg disciple Chris Columbus (who wrote every 80s kid’s childhood favourite “The Goonies” as well as the Christmas comedy “Home Alone”), it’s probably the most Joe Dante movie that Dante has ever made. A mixture of Capra-esque America (in particular the holiday classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Bedford Falls now Kingston Falls), and icky creature feature, it also serves as a darkly funny story about the responsibility of owning a pet. In addition to being a very funny and nasty little film, it also works pretty damn well as a kids horror movie, and the inspiration for many films after it (“Ghoulies”, “Critters”, “Hobgoblins”, “Troll” etc.) Like “Die Hard”, this yuletide-set film is starting to become a non-traditional Christmas classic. Darlene Love’s iconic ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ plays over the opening credits, the ‘troubles and responsibilities of owning a pet’ and ‘Don’t shop for Christmas presents at the last minute in fucking Chinatown back alleys, you idiot’ elements to the story definitely have it working as a Christmas film in my view. And then there’s Phoebe Cates’ very, very un-holly jolly Christmas nightmare story, which is macabre brilliance. It’s definitely a Christmas film. Producer Spielberg really gets the best out of the two sides of Dante’s directorial brain here; Nasty black comedy and juvenile silliness, whilst also having a lot in there for film buffs too, as is typical of cinephile Dante. And this time, Dante sticks the landing.

Zach Galligan is just OK in the lead. He’s sympathetic enough, but the supporting cast act circles around him. Hoyt Axton is immediately excellent as well-meaning shonky inventor/salesman Rand Peltzer. He’s got great presence, an excellent speaking voice too. Phoebe Cates is absolutely perfect as the beautiful, sweet girlfriend with a traumatic past that continues to rear its head in late December every year. Polly Holliday and Judge Reinhold are your Frank Capra humourless grinchy jerks (with deleted footage that apparently paid more overt homage to “It’s a Wonderful Life”), with the former also doubling as The Wicked Witch of the West, pretty much. The late, great Dick Miller has one of his most memorable parts as Mr. Futterman, who has had experience with a different kind of ‘Gremlin’, in an amusing in-joke. Frances Lee McCain always seemed to play 80s mums (Lorraine’s mum in “Back to the Future”, Ren’s mum in “Footloose”, Gordy’s mum in “Stand By Me”), but this time she also gets to be a bit proactive, showing that a small town American housewife is perfectly capable of nuking a few nasty gremlins in her kitchen. Look out for an excellent cameo by Spielberg and Robbie the Robot as well.

Chris Walas created the title creatures, and anyone who has seen his work in David Cronenberg’s remake of “The Fly” will not be surprised looking at the ugly little buggers. Typically anarchic Dante characters, they’re wonderfully nasty. The character of Gizmo is perhaps more surprisingly, also an adorable Walas animatronic creation. Easily the star of the film, he still looks wonderful in 2020 if you ask me. The image of Gizmo driving the pink Barbie car is an iconic 80s moment if you ask me. However, like all adorable pets…there’s a catch. A really nasty, uncontrollable, messy, and chaotic catch. Basically, once a young Corey Feldman causes the ruin of absolutely everything with a glass of water (Thanks a lot Corey, you dickhead!) he’s a hamster/rabbit on steroids multiplying all over the place. This is the macabre, disgusting version of every parent’s nightmare when buying their kid a pet rabbit as cute little Gizmo gives birth to a bunch of progressively less cute, crazier Mogwai. It’s actually hilarious to watch these arsehole delinquent Mogwai go crazy. They tie up the family dog with Christmas lights for gawd’s sake! And then when they are inadvertently fed after midnight…things get very, very ugly and chaotic as the spawning Gremlins wreak havoc on the entire town. That’s when Dante, Columbus and Walas really have their anarchic fun with small-town, Capra-esque Americana, setting these crazy and eventually quite deadly little shits on everybody. This is the part of the film that might scare the littlies a bit, but grown-up me was too busy laughing to be terrified. That said, Walas has ‘Stripe’ end up looking a bit like what happened to Jeff Goldblum towards the end of David Cronenberg’s remake of “The Fly” (Was this film the inspiration for Walas’ work on that film?), so I’m a bit surprised this one escaped with a PG rating. It’s quite icky, albeit funny. My favourite bit is the Christmas carolling Gremlins, scaring the shit out of mean old Holliday and fucking with her old-timey stair-climber. Joe Dante and Chris Columbus send up Capra-esque America with a nasty, darkly funny film. The Christmas-time setting also adds another layer of gleeful malevolence to this juvenile horror-comedy, the model of its type. Wonderful, anarchic music score by Jerry Goldsmith (“The Omen”, “A Patch of Blue”, “Planet of the Apes”) to match, too. Meanwhile, I still want a Mogwai all these years later. A stuffed one, of course. I’m not an idiot.

Maybe not a flawless masterpiece, but a wildly entertaining, gleefully nasty near-classic nonetheless. Works as a darkly humorous Yuletide viewing choice, too.

Rating: A-