MoFo Top 100 Horror Movies: The List

Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984)
Imdb

Date Watched: 11/27/18
Cinema or Home: Home, with filmmaker commentary track
Reason For Watching: I am a stubborn bitch who must always be right
Rewatch: Yes, many times over.

*SPOILERS*

With all the drama surrounding the upcoming MoFo Horror Countdown, I gave Gremlins yet another look. When I watched it about two weeks ago, I was mostly amazed at how funny I still found it to be after having not seen it in many years, but I was also surprised by the amount of violence and gore it contains.

In tonight’s rewatch, I paid closer attention to those darker aspects and now I am absolutely sure that Gremlins is horror. It’s “sanitized horror,” as Captain Spaulding put it, but still very much deserving of the horror classification. I forget which of the filmmakers in the DVD commentary track said it, but one of them described the film as “It’s a Wonderful Life meets The Birds.” I think that’s pretty accurate. Only instead of an avian attack, we get a horde of demonic looking creatures (not toys, as Nostromo would have you believe) that do things like rig a stair lift to eject an elderly lady through a glass window and catapult her to her death, take revenge on a science teacher by killing him with a hypodermic needle, jump out of a Christmas tree and choke a woman, chew through the brake lines of the sheriff’s car, and drive a snow plough straight through a man’s house. In the battle of gremlins vs humans, we also see a gremlin get exploded in the microwave and another ground to bits and splattered everywhere when it gets caught in a juicer. And then, of course, there’s the gruesome demise of Stripe, the leader of the gremlins, who melts into a bubbling, moving puddle of sickening greenish goo.



The movie is certainly a comedy, too, especially in its earlier scenes. It’s funny as hell, but in a very dark way and the farther along we get in the film, the more balanced the horror and comedic elements become, with the comedy taking a back seat to the horror in many scenes – often to a much higher degree than a lot of what is found in many of the more widely acknowledged horror comedies. If any of you in the “Gremlins is not horror” camp are reading this, I urge you to watch it again and reconsider.

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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.

You're an enigma, cat_sidhe.

You should see the sequel.
The entire thing is like an extended version of that bar sequence... with cartoon sound effects added for good measure.

Computer's dead again. Just popped in on Sarah's to say Go Gremlins and why is it again that nostromo isn't banned?

Event Horizon (1997)
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan
Genre: Sci-Fi Horror

Date 2047: A star ship, the 'Event Horizon' that had mysteriously disappeared into a black hole 7 years early suddenly reappears in orbit around Neptune. A rescue team is dispatched to investigate and salvage the mystery ship.

Event Horizon has some things going for it...and some things against it. The concept of a long lost star ship reappearing after it had mysteriously disappeared into a black hole apparently having traveled to another dimension, which might be Hell...and then, bringing something back from that dark evil place, is a cool idea!

But I wish they would have explored the concept of what Hell was like and how it manifested itself on the ship in more detail. This could have had some deep existential ideas and explored some unique concepts. Instead we get a fun-horror-gore movie with people dying in gruesome ways. Bu this could have been so much more.

To me the ship was the best thing, as there wasn't much of character development and not much in the way of intriguing story lines. I liked the way the ship was mostly dark inside which made it look realer and creepier too. The outer space scenes looked really good. I'd give a 5/5 rating for the art design! The ship was one of the best I've seen in sci fi, especially the rotating hall way and the singularity engine drive which looked like a giant gyroscope. Very cool.

Since this movie first came out those sets have been copied in other sci fi movies and have become iconic staple of sci fi.

Two big name actors appear in this, Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill. Sam Neil especially works well in his role. He's a pivotal part of the story and makes for an interesting character.

Event Horizon is best taken as fun entertainment, it has a great look, an interesting concept and if you like gore it's got that too.

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