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Gremlins
Executive producer Steven Spielberg and director Joe Dante scored with a 1984 sleeper called Gremlins, a meticulously crafted send-up of 1950's science fiction movies that completely defies logic but never fails to provide the laughs that prove that the filmmakers are clearly in on the joke here.
It's Christmas time in the fictional hamlet of Kingston Falls where a third rate inventor named Rand Peltzer presents his son Billy with an exotic pet named Gizmo as a gift. Rand and Billy are both warned there are three things they must never do to Gizmo: They are not to expose him to bright light, they're not to get him wet, and they are not to feed him after midnight. Needless to say, about 35 minutes into the film, Gizmo gets light, water, and fed after midnight which turns Gizmo into a gremlin machine, producing hundreds of deadlier, uglier versions of Gizmo who wreak destruction on the small town.
This film reminds me of another Spielberg production from 1982 called Poltergiest in that Chris Columbus' screenplay was written in a tongue in cheek manner that makes it an affectionate valentine to the genre it's saluting but provides more laughs than genuine scares. The film actually walks the line between valentine and lampoon and does it quite beautifully as the realistic small town atmosphere that is carefully established in the opening frames becomes the blueprint for a story that makes very little sense but we don't really notice.
While most movie monsters attack, they have one focus and do one thing, they want to destroy all earthlings. Though there is destruction here, the actual body count is rather small and we watch the gremlins adapt to human sensibilities a little too quickly. We should be wondering how these gremlins know how to cut telephone lines or how to sing Christmas carols or how to drink and smoke cigarettes or how to kill someone with a chainsaw or a tiny gun, but instead of scratching our heads, we just laugh.
I'll never forget the scene of Billy's mother actually nuking one of the gremlins in a microwave. That's the other thing that tickled me about this movie. In most horror movies, when monsters attack, the people run, but not the Kingston Falls population...these people stand up for their houses, their property, their town, no matter what. I also loved the minor subplot of Rand Peltzer's ridiculous inventions that only work temporarily
The performances serve the story beautifully. Baby-faced Zach Galligan is sincere as Billy and country singer Hoyt Axton is terrific as Rand Peltzer. I also LOVED Polly Holliday as the rich dragon lady who owns half the town, where Holliday perfectly channels Margaret Hamilton's Elvira Gulch in The Wizard of Oz. Dante deserves a bouquet for his overseeing of production values here, which were first rate, but with Spielberg's presence on the set, that shouldn't be a surprise. There are some slightly dated elements, but this one is still a lot of fun.
Executive producer Steven Spielberg and director Joe Dante scored with a 1984 sleeper called Gremlins, a meticulously crafted send-up of 1950's science fiction movies that completely defies logic but never fails to provide the laughs that prove that the filmmakers are clearly in on the joke here.
It's Christmas time in the fictional hamlet of Kingston Falls where a third rate inventor named Rand Peltzer presents his son Billy with an exotic pet named Gizmo as a gift. Rand and Billy are both warned there are three things they must never do to Gizmo: They are not to expose him to bright light, they're not to get him wet, and they are not to feed him after midnight. Needless to say, about 35 minutes into the film, Gizmo gets light, water, and fed after midnight which turns Gizmo into a gremlin machine, producing hundreds of deadlier, uglier versions of Gizmo who wreak destruction on the small town.
This film reminds me of another Spielberg production from 1982 called Poltergiest in that Chris Columbus' screenplay was written in a tongue in cheek manner that makes it an affectionate valentine to the genre it's saluting but provides more laughs than genuine scares. The film actually walks the line between valentine and lampoon and does it quite beautifully as the realistic small town atmosphere that is carefully established in the opening frames becomes the blueprint for a story that makes very little sense but we don't really notice.
While most movie monsters attack, they have one focus and do one thing, they want to destroy all earthlings. Though there is destruction here, the actual body count is rather small and we watch the gremlins adapt to human sensibilities a little too quickly. We should be wondering how these gremlins know how to cut telephone lines or how to sing Christmas carols or how to drink and smoke cigarettes or how to kill someone with a chainsaw or a tiny gun, but instead of scratching our heads, we just laugh.
I'll never forget the scene of Billy's mother actually nuking one of the gremlins in a microwave. That's the other thing that tickled me about this movie. In most horror movies, when monsters attack, the people run, but not the Kingston Falls population...these people stand up for their houses, their property, their town, no matter what. I also loved the minor subplot of Rand Peltzer's ridiculous inventions that only work temporarily
The performances serve the story beautifully. Baby-faced Zach Galligan is sincere as Billy and country singer Hoyt Axton is terrific as Rand Peltzer. I also LOVED Polly Holliday as the rich dragon lady who owns half the town, where Holliday perfectly channels Margaret Hamilton's Elvira Gulch in The Wizard of Oz. Dante deserves a bouquet for his overseeing of production values here, which were first rate, but with Spielberg's presence on the set, that shouldn't be a surprise. There are some slightly dated elements, but this one is still a lot of fun.