Gremlins (1984)
…’cause you never can tell - there just might be a gremlin in your house.
THE SUMMARY: A father stumbles upon a mysterious Furby-Grogu crossover in Chinatown and buys it as a Christmas gift for his son, unleashing a monstrous takeover of the town, stoppable only by simply turning on the lights, which nobody ever thinks to try. On paper, it sounds like absolute cheese. In practice, it is - but it’s the finest, top-shelf ‘80s cheese that drops jaws and provokes laughs simultaneously.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER MICHAEL SCHLECHT (FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER): All month, Michael is upping the production quality by offering his selection thoughts via video submission.
Transcription: Gremlins had to be on this list. Not only is it my favorite Christmas movie, but it also firmly holds a spot in my all-time top-20 movie list. In fact, this move is so beloved by my wife and I, that the very first Christmas gift we bought for my son Finn is his very own Gizmo. This movie is chock-full of ‘80s charm, silly writing, and the highlight of this movie, incredible practical effects. And I absolutely love that this movie can blend both a comedic death-by-stairlift, and a horrifying death-by-[broken neck] in a chimney, and it somehow just works. The production in this movie is top-notch, especially for the time. Despite having watched this movie dozens of times, the wild and crazy variety of gremlins has me noticing something new with every viewing. Fun fact: hawk-eyed viewers might have noticed a familiar town square set that Gremlins used that is also used in another movie that lives on my top 20 list. From the 41 people credited for this movie’s special effects, to Spielberg executive producing Chris Columbus’ wild script, to the light racism, everything came together to produce a wonderfully pulpy sci-fi Christmas movie.
THE BEST:
All the legendary death scenes: Without any prior knowledge of this movie, I was expecting a much more ‘baby Yoda’ story arch. Gizmo is some special superpower creature, there will be some big problem they’ll have to solve, and Gizmo will save the day. With that expectation, the start of the movie dragged a bit as I was waiting for the big problem to emerge. I didn’t expect Gizmo himself to be the problem, and I certainly didn’t expect that problem to be as graphically lethal as it was.
Once the deaths hit, any slowness with which this movie starts is accelerated more than sufficiently to make up for it. Every single attack and death is creative and hilarious. Billy’s mom fighting off gremlins, microwave-exploding one and Billy beheading another into fireplace incineration. The science teacher Mr. Hanson getting syringed in the ass. The gremlins taking a killdozer to Murray before the killdozer was even a thing. Mrs. Deagle’s limp airborne stairlift launch had me gut laughing. Even Stripe’s death was great - a nasty, bubbly, cauldron-style melting that was just one in a lengthy parade of excellent effects.
Every single attack/death scene was an A+ shocker, which is especially impressive in a sequence. When you know absurdity is coming, and it still finds ways to surprise you, that’s a mark of high-level creativity.
Cheesy but excellent effects: As great as movie visuals have become in the digital era, and that virtually anything can be created visually by computer rather than by hand, there’s something nostalgic and charming about the old way of doing things. Does it look as convincing? No. Everything looks like some high-level combination of a sock puppet show and a middle school science class volcano. But there’s just something to actually making things physically by hand, rather than by pixel, and this movie puts up high effort in that area.
It’s not just the gooey grossness of the gremlin cocoons, or the dexterity of the gremlin puppets, it’s the subtle things. The bar scene is an amazing display of detail. Gremlins drinking. Gremlins smoking. The flasher gremlin. Gremlins playing arcade games. Gremlins playing cards, including a done-up high-class female gremlin. The aerobic workout gremlin. The mugger gremlin to close. It’s an incredible amount of prop and puppet work individually - to achieve it all together cohesively is very impressive.
Based about the Chinese: Not only is Gremlins mischievously fun, but it’s prophetic. Of course the plague comes from China. Gremlins saw it clearly nearly 40 years before the threat was realized. Also notable - contrary to current attitudes, just a little bit of racial stereotyping never hurt anybody. In fact, a racial stereotype helps save the day in this case.
Some actually serious themes to ponder: To say this movie is all silliness and no serious philosophical value would be to sell it short. Granted, I won’t argue it’s some kind of Socratic dialogue, but layered in the plot are a few themes that could use more consideration today.
Machines aren’t everything: Throughout the movie, machines go haywire. Much of that is due to Billy’s dad being an inventor, and a home full of prototype devices that are supposed to make life easier but just make messes instead. There are some other examples though - Mrs. Deagle’s stairlift shorts out. The gremlins meddle with traffic signals and Murray’s TV antenna to spawn similar chaos.
The point is that over-reliance on technology can create chaos and danger. Machines and automation are great, but when we forget how to do things by hand, and depend on machines instead, we expose ourselves should those machines fail.
Self-reliance matters: Likewise, the police response in the movie in interesting. The police are slow to respond, skeptical of the obvious chaos in town, and are only available to clean up messes, not to actually prevent them. At one point the cops actually watch a mall Santa get murdered by gremlins and just leave the scene.
I don’t raise this point to be ‘anti-police’ inherently. I raise this point because as the movie illustrates, you need to be your own first and last responder. If you can’t defend yourself, good luck finding someone else to do it better.
It created the PG-13 rating: I wasn’t the only one who started this movie with expectations completely different from what it delivered, apparently. In the early ‘80s when Gremlins was made, there was no PG-13 rating, thus studios sought to avoid an R rating and the commercial consequences that come with it. Gremlins was originally intended to be much more gory than it turned out, with the monsters eating Billy’s dog, killing his mom, and throwing her severed head down the stairs, among other graphic violence.
To avoid the R rating, the goriest story elements were scrapped, but Gremlins still pushed the boundaries of what could be rated PG. TV Guide accused the movie of being ‘cynically aimed to draw an audience of small children who would no doubt be terrorized by this myth-shattering film.’ The New York Times asked ‘will children cheer when Billy blows up the Kingston Falls movie theater, where the gremlins, now resembling an average kiddie matinee crowd, are exuberantly responding to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?’
In response to the criticism, executive producer Steven Spielberg requested a new rating with the MPAA, the governing body of movie ratings, something between PG and R, and thus PG-13 was born. Spielberg said in an interview later, ‘I created the problem and I also supplied the solution… I invented the rating.’
The microwave
Mrs. Deagle’s stairlift launch
The killdozer
THE WORST:
The ‘three rules’ premises are a little silly: I know, I know - what kind of jackass is a big enough buzzkill to overanalyze the scientific premises of a movie about killer Furbies from the Chinese black market? That’s why I’m not knocking the movie for it. I just think it’s worthy of mention.
The water rule: Exposure to water causes the gremlins to reproduce, and feeding them after midnight causes them to transform into monsters. Indeed, when Stripe is on the loose, Billy warns that if he gets to water ‘it’ll start all over again,’ as in Stripe will spawn many more gremlins.
Yet Stripe is running through a snowy landscape without reproducing. Yes, the science teacher Mr. Hanson says this reproduction doesn’t happen in temperatures under 25 degrees for some reason, but if Stripe is running through snow outside, and then into the department store, the snow on his feet will melt and he will be in contact with liquid water. Sure, perhaps only a tiny amount of water, but after all, Billy demonstrates the gremlin reproduction to Mr. Hanson with an actual water dropper.
This same premise could have been executed with another concept. They reproduce when they eat a certain food, or hear a certain sound, or smell a certain smell, something like that. Under this premise, they reproduce when they come into contact with a single drop of water, except for the drops of water that are everywhere but don’t count.
The light rule: Likewise, bright light is completely disabling to gremlins with just a flash, and actually lethal with sustained exposure. This isn’t a mystery - Billy’s dad is told about it upon Gizmo’s pickup, he informs Billy, and Billy tells everyone else. Kate controls gremlin aggression throughout the bar scene by using a camera flash. It’s unclear in the movie if artificial light can actually kill gremlins, but it certainly can disable them.
Indeed, the movie’s closing advice is turn on the lights to check for gremlins before you go to bed, but nobody does this. If everyone simply flipped the light switch in their home or business, and armed themselves with a flashlight for backup, this attack is over or never happens at all.
Plus, the gremlins are in contact with all sorts of light sources throughout, most of which do nothing. Like the water rule, lights have significant effect on the gremlins, except for all the times they don’t.
Your dad did what?: The only thing comparatively shocking to the microwave scene was Kate halting the action to talk about how her dad died in a freak Christmas accident: years ago, he dressed up as Santa and tried to slide down the chimney to surprise his family, but slipped, broke his neck, got stuck inside, and she accidentally burned his corpse when she started the fire on a cold night a few days later.
First, this aside is of zero plot relevance. Okay, so Kate hates Christmas - so what? There are more pressing issues, like the whole town getting murdered. Way to make it about you bitch, but there are bigger problems right now to solve. This story serves only to create an awkward break in the action.
Second, it’s a conflict that never gets resolved anyway. Is Kate’s love of Christmas restored by the murder of her neighbors and the destruction of her town? In no way does her personal anguish serve the broader plot, but likewise, in no way does the broader plot server her personal anguish. It’s just completely unrelated and unnecessary.
Third, it’s a dumb story that makes no sense anyway. Your dad fell down the chimney… and got stuck in it… and broke his neck instantly… how? What was the impact that caused the broken neck if he’s wedged from the start? And just how big is this chimney if an adult man and several presents can get stuck in it? And wouldn’t there be clues that dad was up there anyway - the ladder on the side of the house? Footprints in any snow on the roof?
I don’t buy it. It’s hoax dead dad of the week. Shut up, silly woman. The scene should be deleted and replaced with a gremlin stuffing her in a chimney instead.
Okay bitch - way to make it about you.
THE RATING: 5/5 Wickies. A slow start and a few conceptual nitpicks aside, once people and gremlins started dying, I was cracking up every scene. It doesn’t fit the philosophical mold that usually earns my highest marks, but if I measure movie quality by memorability, the microwave, the stairlift launch, and several others are scenes I won’t ever forget. As good as slapstick holiday horror gets, if that’s even a genre.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇
NEXT WEEK: The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) NOTE: At the time I published this review, the evening of Saturday 12/10, Home Alone 2 and The Muppet Christmas Carol were tied in last week’s vote, so The Muppet Christmas Carol was selected by coin flip.
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! This is the last week to vote on Christmas movie nominations from long-time listener and helpful show contributor Michael Schlecht (follow him on Twitter). In the event that his list is rejected, we will randomly select a movie from IMDb’s top-rated Christmas movie list. The nomination list will refresh next week for January.
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