Gremlins (1984)

Load of rubbish!!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Awkwardly funny sometimes? I guess, but I honestly thought it was a spoof movie. Maybe if you are an old grandpa you'll enjoy this. This was painful to watch at the nursing home where I volunteer and I would not recommend it whatsoever.

There is no better way to spend the Christmas season, then enjoying one of the greatest seasonal movies, the Gremlins. The movie really gets it when it comes to understanding the Christmas season. It takes you through how most people view Christmas as a happy time of year full of joy and happiness, but it also shows how the holiday season can be a very depressing time for others. No one hammers this home better in the movie then Phoebe Cates,.You know her from her role in Fast Times at Ridgemont, in the iconic scene where she jumps in the pool and ol Judge Reinhold gets his mind wondering and imagines her take off her top off (she takes it off in the film for real, but you knew that) but while Judge was busy dreamin, she catches him in "the act" in the bathroom. V embarrassing for Judge, who is also in Gremlins. Must have been pretty weird to have to work together again just 2 years after the "incident". Anyway, Phoebe, who's name in the movie is Kate, tells Billy Peltzer why she hates Christmas. She first hints at it earlier in the movie when she says "a lot of people get really depressed....While everybody else is opening up their presents, they're opening up their wrists." Pretty damn dark. But eventually she sheds more light as to why she hates Christmas. It turns out her genius dad tried to surprise his daughter on Christmas but dressing like Santa and climbing down the chimney and didn't even tell his wife he did that. Anyway, when he goes to attempt this ridiculous and probably not possible stunt, he falls down the chimney and instantly breaks his neck and dies, like an idiot. His body got stuck there and his family couldn't find him for days until his daughter smelled a terrible odor from the chimney. That's a dark story and you can understand why she has such a dark outlook on Christmas.While everyone knows this movie is mostly about Christmas and celebrating with family and friends, it does veer into a different direction with a subplot involving little furry creatures call Mogwai's. Con-man, sleazy salesman and all around terrible father Rand Peltzer stumbles upon Mogwai's in an underground chinatown shop. He refused to listen to the old wise man who lived there and made a backdoor deal with the young kid to purchase a Mogwai as a Christmas Present for his Adult Son. Also, Rand is an inventor of crappy products such as the Bathroom Buddy, trust me.. its a bad invention. He's know around town as a joke and a weasel and everyone knows his adult son supports his parents with his job as a bank teller.Upon purchasing this Mogwai, the young man warns Rand that to care for the Mogwai he must follow 3 simple rules: 1. They hate bright lights and you need to keep them out of the sunlight, it will kill them (fair and very straight forward rule) 2. Keep them away from water and 3. Don't ever feed them after midnight. It turns out that if they touch water, they multiply pretty cool but more trouble for the owner. If you feed them after midnight, they become these sweet creatures called Gremlins. I have a lot of questions on why "midnight" is a time they can't be fed and how these creatures are timezone centric. So obviously Billy Peltzer f's up when him and his pal Corey Feldman accidentally spill water on the Mogwai they call Gizmo, which immediately spawns off 5 more Mogwai. Now Mogwai are kind of whack, they are pretty much Bootleg Furby's, the popular children's toy from the Late 90s early 2000's. They add no real value and are more of a burden then anything. The 5 Mogwai's spurned from gizmo are kind of badasses. They plays a prank on the dog and hang him by the Christmas lights. They also chew threw the power chord on Billy's clock which stopped his clock at like 11:40pm. And Billy is a total weenie and didn't realize his clock his wrong and fed the 5 BA Mogwai's some fried chicken after midnight.This led to the Mogwai transforming into Gremlins which the movie tries to tell you they are "bad guys" but i'd disagree. They were however very ugly. These maniacs just wanted to drink booze, smoke cigs and shoot some guns, like most americans. There's a great montage when they are at the local pub holding Phoebe's character hostage as they all raged! Seemed like the type of bar I'd like to go to. The lead Gremlin, who they called Strip got loose after Billy's mom stabbed and microwaved his 4 other Gremlin friends. He went down to the local Y and jumped into the pool and multiplied the Gremlins by about 1,000. After a night out on the town causing some light mischief and some partying with their homies, they settled down for a screening of Snow White at the local theater. Billy, Gizmo and Kate (Phoebe) were jealous of how much fun the Gremlins were having and ambushed them by blowing up the theater and killing them all but Stripe. They eventually tortured spike by slowly melting him to death in sunlight. Extremely violent and unfair!.One Random thought, how come if the Mogwai/Gremlins touch water, they multiple but they can walk around in snow and not multiply? Also, I laughed every time Stripe shot a gun, So great!

Gremlins is one of my favourite movies that seamlessly blends comedy and horror or as some might label it a horror comedy. Gremlins takes the innocent time of Christmas and takes a satirical yet dark spin on the holiday, highlighting societal issues of consumerism, patriotism and greed.The film paints a pessimistic view on Christmas and how these issues can inevitably lead to chaos. It's a great metaphor for how the holiday is swept in ideas of consumerism, yet it's painted to be a time of joy and innocence. What's funny about this movie is how it depicts these issues. The Gremlins are mischievous creatures who embody everything wrong with consumerism, once you break the rules everything can go wrong. It's a great satire on how American culture can't always take responsibility for commercial items. Mrs Deagle represents greed and her unlikeable character is hysterical because it epitomises the essence of greed.Joe Dante alludes his premise to 1950's horror movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which are directly referenced in the film. It takes these concepts and takes a satirical spin, using the monsters as a metaphor not as a gimmick.Gremlins is simply brilliant and I notice something new every time I watch the movie. It's not just a great movie to watch around Christmas, it's a great movie to watch all around.

Since I was past puberty the first time I saw this & am a LOT older now, maybe I just needed to be 10 yrs old to like this. I LOVE comedy. WACKY comedy. Verbal comedy. Physical comedy. This? Violence-as-Comedy??? I don't get it. It is just stupid & annoying. 4* for the Positives = up until the gremlins take over, it is quite cutesy nostalgic & the gremlins & mogwai are well done. But, the Violence-as-Comedy story??? Keep it. Seriously, it is NOT "horror". It is NOT "comedy". It is just Violence-as-Comedy. I didn't even finish watching it this 2nd time.