Class of '84: Gremlins

Don't feed it after midnight!

Rounding off the Class of '84 retrospective I've been doing, it's fair to look at one of the more unexpected hits of that year--produced by Spielberg, directed by Joe Dante, it's creature feature Gremlins. Gooey monsters, a Christmas theme, what could be better?

Dante was given his lease into filmmaker by legendary B-movie king Roger Corman (and by sheer coincidence, another protege of Corman by the name of James Cameron also had his big hit in '84). In turn, Spielberg would bring Dante up from the realm of schlocky horror films and assign him a script by Chris Columbus, inspired by WW2 stories of little demonic airplane saboteurs. It was...much darker than the final product, with heads being decapitated, restaurants of people left devoured, and some pretty shocking depths. This was considerably toned down in the end--but even what we ultimately got was still enough to freak out both kids and parents alike on release.

The setup is simple--a suburban inventor dad (Hoyt Axton) scoops up a furry little creature from a Chinatown store and presents it to his son Billy (Zach Galligan). Said creature, a 'Mogwai', gets christened as Gizmo, and proves to be as charming as the next marketable critter after ET could be. Unfortunately, a little accident here, a little carelessness there, and Gizmo spawns several far meaner monsters that metamorphasize into destructive maniacal horrors. They don't discriminate in who they terrorize--be it in the mean old woman lording over the town who they send flying out of a window by means of stair lift, or cops and carollers.

The characters are pretty broad, with Billy being a straightforward nerdy eighties teen protagonist, with some highlights like the paranoid old man played by Dick Miller, fresh after being gunned down by the Terminator. But what no doubt got in eighties audiences were the creatures themselves--some of the puppetry is still pretty impressive, and while some of the Gremlins look a bit rubbery now, they still get across plenty of personality. And what sort of personality? Why, sadistic sabotage-revelling hedonism, of course. Sure they flat-out murder people, but it's easy to see how folk could share their absolute glee in doing so. And with horror-comedy definitely swinging in thanks to Ghostbusters that year, it's even easier to see how people were primed for it.

However, toned down as it may have been from the script, the film still has graphic close-ups of half-melted monstrous faces and some less than pleasant deaths; kids may have been scared, but they still revelled in it, and parents weren't happy. Some people have tried to read various allegories into it, which for this sort of film I thinking is overthinking matters. Temple of Doom and this film lead to whole new ratings being created--I doubt Spielberg could've imagined he'd give the MPAA such a double punch in one year.

 Nevertheless, what do I think of it? It's fun, sure, but I don't rate it quite as highly as some do among fixtures of eighties flicks. The characters are mostly slightly flat and the gremlin action feels a bit late, but there's lots of amusing little gags and spectacle (and one weirdly jarring scene where a character gives a rather dark story about their dislike of Christmas).
 Gremlins 2, on the other hand? Now we're talking!

Coming a few years later in 1990, Gremlins 2 establishes it's far wackier tone immediately with a literal Looney Tunes cartoon. The action gets moved to a technology-packed skyscraper in Manhattan, run by a pastiche of Donald Trump (John Glover), who, er, bear in mind at the time was just a real estate mogul with larger than life marketing. Zach and his girlfriend return to find Gizmo inadvertently spawning another batch of Gremlins that start destroying the place. The creature puppets look far better, and the film just revels in its lunacy--a genetics lab led by Christopher friggin' Lee spawns new hybrids and, my best part, a brainy eloquent Gremlin voiced by Tony Randall.

Between taking over the stock market, wrecking every gadget in sight, abusing Leonard Maltin for slating the first film, and even going after the film reel itself, this one holds nothing back in what its critters can do, up to and including a musical number. It's so unrelentingly goofy and revelling in it that it easily is my favorite of the two films. However, it didn't do quite as well, perhaps coming a few years too late, and that's been about it for Gremlins since.

The first movie spawned a slew of imitators, ranging from the cult classic like Critters, to so bad they're hilarious productions such as Hobgoblins, to nonsensical toilet waste nobody cares about such as Munchies. That fad died off by the nineties (though Dante gave us a successor of sorts with '98's Small Soldiers), but there's been scripts and rumors circulating of a third film so far. I've actually seen Galligan in person discuss it--who assures us that the original team is vehemently against another remake.

With the resurgence lately in practical effects, combined with CG, there's certainly many ways it can be done--but in the meantime, the first two flicks are fine for anyone in the mood for some silly pint-sized havoc. If you want a Christmas movie with more mutations, go for the first; if you want all-out unhinged madness that also brings together Dracula, Bugs Bunny, and Hulk Hogan, see the second. Either way, don't get water on them, and give it a try...